


Sunshine At Night

by Hinny_B



Series: Nick Nightly's Bedtime Stories AU [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Dog!Ford, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Stan and Ford bonding, Stan's kid, dad!stan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23540746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinny_B/pseuds/Hinny_B
Summary: After the death of his wife, Stan's left to pick up the pieces and carry on. Two years after her death, he and his daughter are doing all right. His gig as a night time radio host is enjoyable and he gets to read bedtime stories to his little girl on the air. How cool is that? When a stray dog shows up on his property nearly frozen and starving to death, he takes it in until it is well. Only there is something very odd about this dog.Ford's life can't get any worse. He's let a dream demon con him into building a portal that could destroy this dimension, driven off his best friend, alienated himself from his family, and been cursed by an angry ghost. He's cold, starving, and at the end of his rope. Then he stumbles into the last person he thought he'd ever see again-his twin.This is the sequel to Calendar Pages.
Relationships: Carla McCorkle/Stan Pines, Ford Pines & Original Character(s), Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Stan Pines & Original Character(s), past - Relationship
Series: Nick Nightly's Bedtime Stories AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655992
Comments: 101
Kudos: 151





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Time for some good old angst to start off with. Woo! Strap in people, this is going to be a bumpy ride, with adorable moments. (All of them involving Abby, because what child of Stan's wouldn't be adorable?)
> 
> A huge thank you to my lovely beta reader, Ariel_Tempest! I can't thank them enough for doing this and thwacking me over the head when I start writing Ford in too formal and archaic prose. You make the pages bleed, but they're better for it later.
> 
> I want to give a quick shout out to detectivejigsaw for unintentionally giving me the motive to get back to working on this series with her Dog!Stan fic. If you haven't read it, go, it's full of Ford and Dog!Stan bonding. 
> 
> This is a direct sequel to Calendar Pages. If you haven't read it, what are you doing you here? Go read that first. Shoo! Shoo! Go on.

Stan sat in a chair too small for him, his knees poking higher than comfortable with his feet planted firmly on the carpeted floor. The chair’s back didn’t even come up to his shoulder blades. The desk in front of him, by contrast, was normal size and height. A blond woman about his age, maybe a year or two younger, sat at it folding and unfolding her hands in an obvious attempt to dispel her nerves.

“Once again, let me say I’m sorry to have called you in from work, Mr. Pines,” she said at last. Given her earlier sternness when they’d met in the school office, he wasn’t sure how sorry she actually was.

“My shift doesn’t start for another couple of hours,” he replied, watching her relax and lay her hands flat on the desk. He knew the reason he was here. It was short, with wavy brown hair, brown eyes like his, had six fingers on each small hand, loved cats and the color purple. “Who called her a freak?”

“No one. Abigail hit a boy.”

“What was the boy doing to her before she hit him?” Stan asked, his voice calm though his stomach knotted. He'd known his daughter was going to have a rough time in school the moment he’d realized she was polydactyl. Just like Ford had, though Abigail had no twin to stand beside her. Not even a younger sibling. He pushed the thought out of his head the moment it entered. Regret wasn’t welcome today.

The woman, Abby’s new teacher, Miss Contrite, gave him a sharp look.

“Mr. Pines, your daughter hit someone.”

“Oh? Hit as in slapping on the arm or hit by punching in the nose?”

“Mr. Pines, she hit someone. It doesn’t matter the type.”

“Abby wouldn’t do that without being provoked. What happened before the punch?”

Miss Contrite clenched her hands together tightly. More than likely she’d had a speech all worked out in her head, a scene mapped out with where he sat, where she sat, and how they were to react to her revelation of Abby’s behavior. And he was going off script. _Well, tough shit lady, you just took over this class and have already pegged my kid a trouble maker. You don’t get to do that. Not to my kid_ , Stan growled out mentally, preparing himself for the upcoming battle.

“Her hair clip. One of the boys snatched it.”

“Was it Chase Peltzer?” he asked.

“The boy isn’t the one we’re here to discuss. Your daughter punched him in the face!” she said, exasperation tightening her throat as she practically spat the last three words.

“Good, that’s what she’s supposed to do if someone attacks her.”

That was clearly the wrong answer. She gazed at him wide-eyed, mouth open as if she were a fish gasping on the deck of a boat. He needed to net her before she flopped back into the waters and started fighting again.

“You said a boy snatched her hair clip. That clip is very firmly fixed in her hair with extra bobby pins every morning so she won’t lose it. He’d have to rip it out of her hair on purpose to get it.”

“M-Mr. Pines-”

“This boy assaulted my daughter to get her hair clip. She defended herself. Was it more than was necessary? I don’t know. I didn’t see it happen, but I know my kid. I’ve taught her, if someone attacks you, you’re allowed to kick, scream, punch and bite to get away. The hair clip was her mother’s, one of the only mementos she has left of her-” 

Miss Contrite’s mouth snapped shut, her whole body freezing at the implications of his words.

“-and as such she’d likely go off on whoever took it. No, that doesn’t excuse the hitting, but it explains it. Also, if it was Chase Peltzer, he has been picking on Abby since last year. Mrs. Wormwood and I had an understanding regarding them. You didn’t move their seats next to each other, did you?”

“I was unaware of any arrangement. Mrs. Wormwood didn’t leave a note when she left on maternity leave.”

Stan called bullshit on that. He knew for a fact Mrs. Wormwood would’ve left extensive notes regarding Chase Peltzer or the kid would try to cut Abby’s hair or glue her fingers together again. That last one had him seeing red for a week.

“They’re not to sit next to each other, ever,” he growled. “In fact, I will be going straight over to Principal Higgins with this.”

She jerked at that, but he was already on his feet, though his knees ached from the child size chair he’d been sitting in.

“You don’t need to. I will move them immediately. Though, Abigail will still have one recess worth of detention for hitting.”

“And Chase?” Stan asked

“I didn’t say who it was,” Miss Contrite snapped, then seemed to realize she’d all but outed the boy as the culprit already. Stan had to hand it to her though, she stuck to her guns in not naming him.

“Is the boy going to be spoken to as well?” he clarified.

A slight turn of the head and he knew Chase wasn’t going to be punished for his part. Stealing wasn’t as big a crime as punching apparently. Under the law (the one Stan should abide by, tried to now, but had a dubious relationship with), they were nearly the same. It was all about degree.

“So, a thief isn’t being punished.”

“He’s not a thief,” she countered.

He was not impressed by Miss Contrite. Yes, he was biased toward his kid, but he wasn’t one of those parents who saw their child as incapable of gross misbehavior. It was one of the few things his father had made clear to him as a child. Any kid could screw up. Though usually, it seemed to be him.

“He took my daughter’s hair clip right off her head. That’s called assault and theft. If he’d been eighteen, we would be pressing charges.” That was a little extreme and unlikely considering, but frankly, Stan had seen the police beat purse snatchers before. Broken their fingers and bruised their ribs with a few well placed kicks before claiming the person had resisted arrest when they hadn’t. So anything was possible, if he thought about it.

“Mr. Pines! That’s crazy. You can’t charge a six year old!”

“I said if he were eighteen, Miss Contrite. As of right now, you have a boy who has decided it’s okay to take what isn’t his in your class. What are you going to do about it? Because I know what I’m going to do about it. Report this to Mr. Higgins and hope you will be speaking to the boy’s parents next. If not, I know what my recourse is.”

The threat was there, hanging, and he hoped she was wise enough to not trifle with him. No one walked over Stanley Pines or his family. No one. He wanted to dispute the detention, but the school’s policy was clear on it. No hitting, meant no hitting. They were usually more lenient with the younger kids, but Abby and Chase had gotten into it a couple times that fall. Both instances, like this one, she’d been defending herself. He didn’t think it was right, but if it was only one recess he could live with it. He didn’t want her to solve all her problems by punching things. It hadn’t gone well for him later in life. 

“Their seats will be moved tomorrow and I’ll be calling his parents as soon as you leave.”

“Good to hear,” he said before offering her his hand. She stood to shake it, a quick one up and down movement then he left.

Abby was waiting for him in the office, her nose stuck in a Highlights magazine. She’d been crying when he’d arrived, refusing to look him in the eyes. He’d tried to get her to tell him what had happened, but Miss Contrite had demanded he speak with her privately first. He hadn’t been pleased by her interruption. He’d wanted to hear from Abby first, but she refused to tell him. The secretaries, Maureen and Margo, had stepped in and comforted her while he’d been led away. The two women were saints in his book.

They gave him a nod when he entered. 

“Is Mr. Higgins in his office?” he asked.

“Yes, do you need to speak with him?” Maureen asked.

“Yeah, if he’s not busy.”

“I’ll ring him.”

“Hey Sunshine,” he said, plopping down in the chair next to her. “You find all the hidden items?”

“Yeah, now I’m reading about bats,” she replied, turning the magazine and showing him the page. He smiled and ruffled her hair, careful of the flower hair clip. It’d slipped from where it normally sat because all the bobby pins were missing, but at least it was in her hair where it belonged.

He’d bought it for Carla for their fifth wedding anniversary from an antiques store in Eugene. Five wide petals of pale pink enamel set in silver alloy metal around an aqua colored glass center. It reminded him of the plastic clip she had when they were in highschool, so he bought it. She’d worn it nearly every day for a while before buying a few nice looking plastic ones to rotate in when she wanted something more colorful. She’d been wearing one of those the day of the accident.

Now Abby wore her antique one nearly every day.

A heavy sigh escaped him, an old familiar melancholy seeping in as he thought of the clip, Carla, and Abby. She’d been taken away too soon and Stan wasn’t sure he’d ever get over it. Abby still clung to him, though she wasn’t as visceral about their separation as she had been after Carla’s death. Time dulled, numbed, but the lingering scars would stay forever. It’s why she’d punched Chase really. He wasn’t just taking a hair clip, he was taking a piece of her mother.

“Miss Contrite told me what happened,” he said quietly, eyes flicking to the secretaries.

She stiffened.

“I would’ve punched him too, at your age.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Right in the kisser,” he whispered, smirking.

She giggled.

“Mr. Pines, Mr. Higgins will see you now,” Maureen said.

“Thanks. I’ll be back in a few kiddo.”

“Okay,” she said, her gaze following him until he was out of sight.

\-------------------------------

The forest was cold, the snow uneven underneath the trees. The wind blew more down from their branches, dumping it on his back. Ford struggled through a deep patch, his paws sinking into the deep powder. The top crust crunched and snapped with each step, swallowing him until the snow compacted and he could push off again. He was tired. The days were blurring together.

How long had it been since the ghost of Modoc cursed him? Seven days? Nine? A full two weeks? Every day he wasn’t there to safe guard the Portal was another day he waited for the world to end. Unfortunately, Modoc had made it clear he wasn’t allowed in Gravity Falls, not until he satisfied the conditions of his curse.

_Stanford Pines cannot exist while Bill’s eyes are still on him and the pact remains._

Yet he did exist, as a dog. Ford still had all his memories of who he was and he firmly believed himself human. This wasn’t the first time he’d started a debate on how to define one’s existence. Instead, he focused on the second half of the phrase.

His deal with Bill was air tight as far as he could reason. From now until the end of time he’d promised that he’d be Bill’s friend. Why had he said that? He knew it was his own desire for knowledge and a sure way to getting the recognition he deserved. He must’ve been an easy mark to the dream demon.There had to be a way though or Modoc wouldn’t have specified the condition.

_May you only return when you have restored your bonds to Night, and Sunshine proclaims you kin. For then Stanford Pines will gain that which Bill fears._

That which Bill fears. So the sun and night or probably their personifications, held something that could stop him. Ford could only guess what it was. He had to find these entities and convince them to help him. Though, _“restore his bond”_ meant he’d met or been familiar with Night before. Likely they’d hid their true identity from him. An old college professor or student perhaps? Did he know anyone who oozed shadows or seemed to know more about the stars and their movements than he? He couldn’t remember.

He was so very tired. The cold sapped his strength, and the hunger pains, forever present these days, slowly drove all other thoughts from his head. Ford needed to find some place to rest, preferably some place warm.

There was less snow on the ground now, most of it staying in the tree branches. Ford plodded along on the southwestern trail he’d been blazing since he’d left. He wasn’t sure why he was following the Mystical Mailbox’s last note to him, but it’d at least given him a starting point. _Family is key. Head southwest. Don’t be afraid to eat the deer.dead_ deer.) He couldn’t hunt. He’d tried, but in his four legged form Ford didn’t have the know how to do it effectively.

 _I need to find food soon,_ he thought, noticing the trees thinning. _If I can sniff out a rat or rabbit burrow, there is a chance._ As he mulled over the best way to go about digging up a burrow, he began to smell something. Smoke, faint, but very welcome, drifted to his nose and he lifted his head. Through the trees he could see fields and fences. Then, in the distance, there were buildings. Ford nearly tripped over his own paws. 

Human habitation.

He’d been avoiding it since he’d nearly been hit crossing the highway out of Gravity Falls. Now though, he was hungry, and houses meant food. He wasn’t above scouring through garbage cans for anything at this point. Hopefully it wasn’t completely frozen.

Ford picked up the pace, breaking out of the woods at a trot, despite the protest from his aching body. He crossed the first field, keeping his sight trained on the large weatherbeaten barn, shed, and house for people moving around outside. Cattle milled in the pasture closest to the barn. A couple horses wearing thick blankets stood against an outbuilding that had been converted into a stable, the doors open for them to go in and out. Ford slunk past, heading to the house and hopefully an outdoor garbage can. He found none. He could smell something in a closed shed; rotting meat, molding bread, and decomposing vegetables, but it was shut tight and locked. Disappointed, he moved on.

His energy steadily waned as he checked another farm. No garbage cans out. Where did the farmers and ranchers keep their trash? He just needed something, anything at this point. He started toward another. To his surprise, the property sported two houses, one newer looking than the other. The newer house had nothing and he turned his attention to the older house sitting eighty, maybe a hundred yards away.

_Please let there be something._

Hunger and desperation moved him forward as he ducked under a metal fence into the barnyard. There were no cows here, only the tall wooden barn. Its exterior was gray with age and warped in places from the weather. The metal roof was covered in snow. A wide solid wood door at one end was ajar, the wind catching it, lifting it before thumping it back in place. Ford watched, judging if he could wiggle in past it.

Shelter or food? He shuddered again. Shelter. He needed to get warm. Starting across the enclosed yard, his feet sunk into the mud. _Great, just great,_ he thought pulling one paw out and trying to find a more solid purchase. The wind picked up and the door swung wide open. The snow was worsening by the minute. 

_Screw it!_

Ford leaped as far as he could, landing halfway to the door and sinking to his chest in the mud. He tried to pull himself out and jump again. The door was so close and the inside smelled of hay and rodents. Both food and shelter! He pulled and strained against the mud. It stuck to him, forcing him to concentrate on freeing one leg at a time. Inch by inch he moved, practically crawling as the mud deepened and clung to his coat. The icy water soaked his underbelly and froze him with every step. 

_Come on! Come on!_

Five feet from the building his body gave out. Soaked, coated in mud, with safety within his reach he could almost hear Bill laughing at him from the Mindscape. This was it, he was going to freeze to death in this form. Ford would’ve laughed at his own state if he could. Instead he stared bayfully at the barn, laying down as best it could in this position. In the distance he heard cows moo, but otherwise it was still.

This is it. This was how the illustrious life that was Stanford Pines was going to end. His greatest achievement, a waiting Doom’s Day device; his best friend hating him, and his family-. 

He’d been avoiding them. His work was too important. Ma had called him impossibly stubborn. Shermie was disappointed he didn’t want to visit (the kids were asking after him: Jacob, Levi, and the twins). The twins. He’d only met them three times. 

Twins.

Shermie’s twins, Mabel and Mason, were what? Six now and he hadn’t seen them since they were three. They reminded him too much of him and Stan. All brown hair and curls and full of energy. It was too hard for him. The last time he’d visited he’d spent the whole time comparing them to himself and Stan. 

His own twin who’d betrayed him when it’d counted the most. Why couldn’t he have been happy for him instead of ruining his chances? Ford’s anger had driven him to succeed at Backupsmore. He’d shown the school what Stanford Pines was truly capable of and once he’d gotten to Gravity Falls, he was on his way to showing the world. He hadn’t needed Stan by his side. He hadn’t needed to sail the world on a boat looking for adventure and researching anomalies like he and Stan dreamed, there were plenty in Gravity Falls! He’d been fine without Stanley. He had. He really had...

He missed him. 

Ford coughed, wishing he could cry. He wanted Stanley. If he was going to die, freeze to death, nameless and a stray, but all he wanted was to hear his twin’s laugh one more time. Closing his eyes, Ford began to drift off unable to control the shivering.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. April got a bit away from me due to many factors including: stuff related to the pandemic and stay home orders, Ariel (my dear beta reader) participating in Camp Nanowrimo and trying to focus more on her writing, and general exhaustion. But we finally hammered out some of the lingering issues with this chapter (three cheers, Woo!). Don't expect speedy updates for a bit still, but I'll try to get another chapter out by the end of the month.

“We’ll have to make this quick,” Stan said, pulling into the Dunst Farm’s yard.

The snow had started the moment he and Abby had left the school. Light at first, he’d known from the weather report that it was going to get worse over the next hour or two before tapering off. At least that was the hope. You could never tell for sure, no matter what the meteorologists said. And of course he had work at the radio station tonight. It was a good thing the old Stanley-Mobile had chains.

“I can help feed the cows,” Abby said eagerly.

“The yard’s a muddy mess,” Stan replied. “I don’t want you stuck in it. Tell you what, you can grab the wheelbarrow from the shed.”

From the back seat, she gave him a mitten clad hand salute. Stan envied the mittens-they kept hands warmer, but were a pain to drive with. Hers were bright pink with cat face patches on them. She called them her kitten mitts. Carla would’ve thought they were adorable.

He pulled the car up to the bend in the driveway where the barn, sheds, and old grainery were. The area from the grainery to the barn was closed in with a metal fence. Over the last month the cows had turned the space into a mud pit, forcing him and his landlord, Howard Dunst, to herd them across the driveway to the other pasture. He could see them huddling near the fence, waiting to be fed, mooing and bellowing as they jockeyed for position.

“I’ll get you in a minute!” he yelled at them, closing the car door. “Sheesh, you act like you weren’t fed this morning.

Abby slipped out, hurrying to catch him before he got too far away. He unlocked the shed and pulled the wheelbarrow out for her before sitting on the bench inside, switching his hiking boots and driving gloves for rubber muck boots and leather work gloves.

“Let’s do this!” he said, slapping his thighs as he stood, pumping himself up for the cold work ahead.

The wind chill was cutting as he grabbed a set of flat boards from where they leaned against the shed. 

“I’ve got the gate!” Abby called, rushing in front of him and undoing the chain, letting it drop and swing open.

“Thanks, Sweetie,” he replied.

Hefting the boards, he walked until the mud began making it difficult to lift his feet, then he dropped them. Laying them in a path to the barn, he frowned, noticing something lying trapped in the mud, not far from the barn’s side door, which had blown wide open.

“Hot Belgian Waffles,” he gasped. He wasn’t sure if it was a dog or a coyote, but it was lying too still, not even fighting. “Oh no.”

Hastily he laid the remaining boards until he could get to the animal. Reaching out, he brushed the snow from its face and thanked the powers that be when he saw puffs of steam coming from its nose. It was still alive, though in bad shape. He was going to need a shovel and a tarp.

“Daddy?” 

He hurried past his daughter back into the shed.

“There’s someone’s dog stuck in the mud,” he answered. The shovels were hung up, and he took one with a spade shaped blade. 

“You’ve got to save it!” Abby stood in the doorway, clutching the door with one hand, the other gripping her coat. “It can’t die!”

“I’m trying, as soon as I get a shovel and tarp.”

“I’ll help.”

“No, you’ll stay where it’s dry. But we’ll need the wheelbarrow at the ready.” He found the tarps folded on a shelf and grabbed one he hoped was big enough. 

Back outside, Stan walked the boardwalk back to the dog and started digging. It was miserable work. The wind blew in gusts, the door behind him swung open and shut, startling him when it banged either way. Still he dug, even as his fingers grew numb.

“Come on fella, you can’t give up now,” he said, hoping they weren’t too late. The dog opened its eyes briefly, but Stan wasn’t sure it saw him. Finally he cleared enough away that he could pull the animal forward onto the boards and from there, the tarp. It didn’t put up a fight, simply let him pull and tug until Stan could wrap it up.

“I can help,” Abby said, startling Stan.

“I told you to wait at the wheelbarrow.”

His daughter pouted. “I want to help the puppy! And I’m standing on the boards. Not in the mud.”

He couldn’t fault her logic. “Okay.” 

Together they pulled the tarp to the gate. Stan’s arms ached and Abby stepped off the boards into the mud twice, but thankfully didn’t sink deep. Ah, to only weigh fifty pounds again, Stan thought. Finally they made it to solid ground. Getting it in the wheelbarrow proved challenging, but finally Stan lifted it, tarp and all in, and they made for the house.

The Dunst farm held two houses. The tenant’s two story house, which was originally built in the nineteen twenties, sat nearest to the barnyard. Its covered porch provided a much needed windbreak in the winter. The owner’s house was fifteen years old and two stories as well. It sat down a separate driveway on the other side of the barnyard, back a bit further, with a small pond in the backyard. Stan was thankful they’d been able to rent something this nice. When he and Abby had moved back to Dreary, Oregon after Carla’s death, he couldn’t bear to live in the apartments near Quentin College again. Too many memories to be comfortable. His old co-worker, Elmer Dunst, had a brother looking for new tenants for his farm. The tenant would help tend the livestock and occasionally haul in hay from the fields. Stan didn’t mind helping out. it was a good way to keep busy when he wasn’t at the radio station.

He sent Abby ahead with the keys to unlock the door and wheeled the dog over. The animal was too light for its size, all skin and bones. It was no wonder it had gotten trapped in the mud. After another few minutes wrestling the animal through the door, he took it straight to the downstairs bathroom, which thankfully was right off the kitchen.

“We’re going to need a lot of towels. Can you get them, Abby?” he asked.

She nodded and disappeared upstairs. No doubt the upstairs bathroom would be stripped in a minute. He smiled fondly then returned to the grim task of checking if the dog was still alive.

“Hey buddy,” he said, unwrapping the tarp and rubbing a hand across its ribs. They stuck out and he felt a pang of sympathy. “We’ll get you warmed up and something to eat. Don’t you worry.”

* * *

Warm water poured over him, pooling around his lower extremities as someone scrubbed their fingers along his sides. Ford groggily opened his eyes. Everything was blurry and muffled, as if he was seeing it from underwater. He closed his eyes again and flicked his ears. There was a pressure around his muzzle, something holding it closed. The water stopped, the hands having left him briefly, then they were back at his sides and back.

“It’ll be okay,” someone said.

Their voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place who it was. There was no soft twang like Fiddleford’s. Despite his efforts to lessen it, his Tennessean accent still caused a particular lilt to his voice. Ford had been far more successful at shedding his New Jersey accent, all in an attempt to be seen as an actual person rather than where he’d come from by his professors. 

“We’ll use all the hot water in the house if we need to.”

A pleasant floral scent blossomed around him, Ford registered it as shampoo or soap as the fingers once more began rubbing his fur coat.

His mysterious savior, his Mr. Mystery, was washing all the mud off. Ford let out a shudder, but he wasn’t cold, not like he had been. Mr. Mystery paused, gave a huff, then went back to his work. Ford lay, enjoying the relaxing feeling, as his tired mind stuttered and started into awareness. There was something hard and solid around him, a bathtub he’d guess. It was the logical place to wash off a muddy dog.

Hot water poured down on him again, the pipes protesting as they rattled to life. A gentle shower; it felt nice.

“Another pass or two and we should be done.”

Ford would’ve hummed sleepily in response if he were human, instead he shifted to find a more comfortable position for his head.

“Heh, you’re beginning to wake up. That’s good.”

“Daddy?”

A child. Ford opened his eyes again. The world was sharper this time. White walls came into focus as he lifted his head. Yep, he was lying on the floor of the tub.

“Yes, kiddo?’

“Can I wash him?”

She sounded small, younger than a teenager, but Ford was terrible at guessing children’s ages.

“No, I’d rather you didn’t. We don’t know if he’s friendly or not. That’s why I wrapped his muzzle in gauze,” Mr. Mystery said. 

_Ah, that explains the pressure_ , Ford thought.

“So he won’t bite me. Can I wash him?”

“I don’t want to risk it. But, you know what you could do?”

“What?”

“Find the old hair dryer. I want to dry him as much as we can.”

Ford saw her come into view over the edge of the tub. He turned slightly to watch her bend down and open a door on the cabinet. Brown hair with a flower hair clip. 

“Looks like our guest is awake,” Mr. Mystery said with a laugh.

It wasn’t hearty, but good natured and teasing and Ford turned the rest of the way to look squarely at the man. His heart nearly stopped.

Stanley. Holy cow, it was Stanley! He’d know that face anywhere.

He must’ve jerked, because Stan’s hands came up off him. 

“Easy boy, we’re not going to hurt you. Easy.”

 _Easy!_ Ford screamed mentally. _Easy! I’m staring at my twin after over a decade. You be easy about it._ A twin who looked more like him than he had since they were about fourteen. That was when Ford had convinced their father his time would be better spent doing other things than boxing. Stan had continued, bulking up in his arms and torso until he couldn’t borrow Ford’s shirts anymore because they were too tight in the arms. Stan wore glasses now, similar to his own, only square instead of concave on the lower part of the lens. His hair was trimmed shorter than Ford’s had been the last time he looked in the mirror.

“It’ll be okay pup, let’s just get the rest of the shampoo off you…” He reached down slowly and Ford forced himself to relax. He still couldn’t believe it. How had he ended up on Stan’s property of all places? When had Stanley developed an interest in farming? Ford didn’t know. A thump made him remember there was one more person in the room.

His niece.

The little girl was probably somewhere between five and seven years old; her hair was wavy and hung a little past her shoulders. She held a hair dryer in her hand and had a curious look.

“Did you spook him?”

“I think he spooked himself,” Stan replied. “You should still keep back anyway.”

“Okay.”

She shuffled side to side, biting her bottom lip as she watched. Back and forth, creep a bit forward, shuffle, repeat until she was pressed up against Stan’s back.

“Abby, honey, you’re crowding,” he said firmly.

“Sorry,” she replied, taking a step back.

“It’s fine. Let me soap him up one more time, then we’ll rinse and dry.”

Skipping back so she stood in the doorway, she waited as patiently as she could.

 _Abby. Her name is Abby. Probably short for Abigail_ , Ford thought as Stan turned the water off and poured a healthy amount of shampoo into his hands. He wondered where her mother was, if Stan was married or divorced. Did she have any siblings? 

He nearly forgot his questions when Stan began massaging the shampoo into his wet fur. If he’d been human, Ford would’ve balked at the treatment, insisting he was a grown man capable of bathing himself. As it was, he went nearly limp. His head drooped and he rolled onto his side to give his brother better access to his underside. Embarrassment be damned, he wanted all the mud off him and his aches rubbed away.

He’d never been so happy to be clean in his life.

Once he was rinsed off, he managed to sit up. The makeshift muzzle prevented him from panting, which he wanted to do. The room had grown hot and muggy, even with the door open, leaving him on the verge of being too hot. Stan didn’t seem inclined to remove it while he towel dried him though. 

“Now let’s see if this boy can stand a hair dryer,” he said, turning to his daughter. “Ready Abby?”

“Ready!”

 _A hair dryer? Of course I can stand a hair dryer,_ he thought.

Ford tried to stand, but his legs weren’t having it. Slipping, his paws went out from under him the moment he tried and Stan had to help him out of the tub. Sitting on the towel covered floor, Stan and Abby took turns blow drying him until they were satisfied he’d dry the rest of the way on his own.

“Well kiddo, let’s see what we have for him to eat.”

“Serena’s dogs like bacon,” she suggested.

“I’m not feeding a dog my bacon,” Stan replied. “How abou-” He was cut off by a loud rapping on the front door. “Hang on.” Standing, he left to answer it, but Abby stayed.

“I’ll feed you bacon,” she whispered conspiratorially.

Ford licked his lips. It wasn’t something he ate in general, (their parents had kept a Kosher house), but apparently Stan did. Perhaps he should have felt offended, but all he did was mentally shrug. He was a dog and he had eaten the deer, so he wouldn’t stop himself if she offered.

He could hear a woman’s voice in the other room and assumed it was Stanley’s wife.

“Hazel!” Abby grinned. “Hazel we rescued a dog!”

“Oh, did you now?” Hazel asked, coming into Ford’s view. 

She was a woman of average height with graying hair that hung in a braid over her shoulder. Definitely too old to be Stan’s wife, he realized. Possibly the grandmother?

Unwinding a brown scarf from her neck, Hazel walked into the bathroom, followed closely by Stan.

“That is definitely a husky, you can tell from the head. Though I haven’t seen one this dark brown before. I wonder if he’s a mix,” Hazel said, kneeling down in front of Ford and letting him sniff her hand. When he didn’t try to shove her away, she took his head in her hands. She tilted his head one way then another before feeling down his chest and legs to his paws. “Hmm, this boy is polydactyl. Strange, usually you see this in cats.”

“I noticed that when I was bathing him.” Stan leaned against the door frame watching Hazel, his arms crossed across his soapy, muddy tee-shirt.

“He has six fingers too!” Abby shrieked. “Daddy, can we keep him?”

“He might be someone’s lost pet, so I’m going to say no right now.”

“But-”

“You’re father’s right,” Hazel said, feeling Ford’s ribs and frowning slightly. “If he’s someone’s pet, we should return him, though I’m less inclined to without good reason. Have you felt his ribs, Stan?”

“Yes.”

“Hopefully he’s just been lost. I’d hate to think someone has been mistreating him.” She stood, giving him a ruffle between his ears. “I’ll talk to Henry and see if he’s heard of anyone losing a brown husky in the last few months.”

“Some college kid could’ve dumped him. Not like it hasn’t happened before at the end of term,” Stan said.

“It’s usually in the summer when we see that,” Hazel replied.

Abby huffed. “I want to keep him. He’s like Jelly.”

“Honey.” Taking two steps, Stan knelt down beside her. “I know you want to keep him, but we have to consider the possibility he’s someone’s pet and they may miss him. Also neither Jelly nor Peanut have been around dogs. They may think their home is under attack and hurt him more. So, keeping him may not be an option.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointment flooding out from the single word.

Ford glowered. He didn’t like being discussed like he wasn’t in the room. Their concern was warranted, but before the curse he’d been fine. He’d eaten when he was human, sometimes...he was certain coffee counted as food in some cultures. Maybe he should’ve eaten more, but Bill! Bill took priority over everything! And they couldn’t keep him. He had to stop Bill. Even if he was stuck as a dog, he had to find a way .

He almost growled, but a sudden thought stopped him. Family is key. Head southwest. Oh no. The mailbox had sent him southwest and he’d found family. It hadn’t been talking about Shermie, it’d meant Stan. The realization felt as if someone had slapped him with a cement brick. He shuddered, recoiling from the imagined blow, earning him concerned looks from all the humans. 

Why had it sent him to Stanley? The obvious answer was to save him from freezing to death.  
That was it. This was only a rest stop; a safe haven for Ford to solve the riddle, to break his curse, and return to fight Bill with whatever weapon Night and the Sun gave him.

If that was it, Ford could live with it. Plus it gave him a unique peek at Stanley’s life without him. Obviously he’d done well enough. A house, a wife, a child, the normal milestones. Not as high as Ford had aimed, but Stanley had landed on his feet as Ford always knew he would. He had personality and people skills, of course they’d gotten him somewhere. Though why a farm mystified him.

“You should take him to see Dr. Lofting as soon as you can. I can call and make an appointment for you,” Hazel said.

“Thanks,” Stan replied, rubbing the back of his neck, something he used to do as a teen when he was anxious or unsure. It was oddly comforting that the habit had persisted. “I don’t know anything about dogs. Cats, though, I’ve learned.”

“I’m going to assume Jelly and Peanut are upstairs in hiding?” Hazel scooted past Abby and peeked around Stan.

“They’re on my bed,” Abby said. 

“Safest place for them. Anyway, let’s get this boy something to eat.”

She led Abby out. “Stan, is there anything here a dog could eat?”

“We have cat food. Should be okay for today.”

“Sounds good, but we can’t give him too much otherwise he’ll get a bad stomach ache.”

“He could use Peanut and Jelly’s dishes,” Abby suggested, eagerly.

“No,” Stan and Hazel said simultaneously. 

“They wouldn’t like it,” Hazel quickly elaborated as Abby’s face fell.

“We’ll find another dish, Sunshine.”

Ford curled his lips in a semblance of a smile. She seemed like a sweet child, alternately quiet and loud, but wanting to be helpful. She clung to Stan’s hand, talking excitedly about her new dog and if she could bring him to school. He didn’t think that was allowed, though he and Stan had tried to sneak their pet opossum into school once. Poor Shanklin had been terrified by the teacher’s shrieking and attempts to corral him in a garbage can. That was the last live animal they’d taken in, except those cockroaches, but they didn’t count. They’d escaped before he’d gotten them to school. Crampelter picking a fight with them had nearly ruined that science fair project. Luckily dead cockroaches were just as good as live for the exhibit. In fact, the teachers preferred them that way.

Thinking of science fair projects immediately brought up West Coast Tech and Stanley’s betrayal. Ford didn’t want to remember it, that cold lump in his heart, not when he’d been so close to freezing to death. Shuddering, he focused on the little girl in a purple sweater helping her dad scoop cat food into a bowl for him.

They gave him a metal mixing bowl with water in it and a smaller one with cat food and leftover mashed potatoes and carrots. Stan untied the gauze from his muzzle then closed the door and left him to eat. Staring at the food, Ford found himself drooling. No, I mustn’t gobble it up, he told himself. He forced himself to take one bite at a time with a few laps of water in between. His stomach, shrunken and tight, yowled in pain. He paused, closing his eyes and licking his lips until it abated and he could gain a minute amount of control again.

He heard what sounded like feet on stairs just outside the door. A moment later came heavy footfalls above followed shortly by water running. From outside the bathroom, Hazel asked Abby about her day. She gave quiet, mostly one word replies. It was all humdrum and normal, something he hadn’t had since he was a child. He lay down on the dry towel they’d left him, fatigue finally overtaking him. With his hunger abated, his eyes began to droop. As much as he wanted to stay alert and listen to the sounds of Stan’s family, he couldn’t. Sleep over took him and for the second time that day, he passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew something for this chapter. This is the first time I've ever uploaded an image here, so I'm hoping I did it right. Check the end for it.

Ford woke in the warm bathroom, his nose filled with a mix of floral and meaty scents. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but it was long enough that he couldn’t hear Abby, Stan, or Hazel. A quick glance at his bowls told him someone had checked on him. He’d thought the delicious smell had been the lingering remains of his meal, but both bowls had been refilled. Pushing himself to his feet, he stretched his aching muscles, glad they seemed to be holding him steady. Now to see what they’d given him to eat.

As he ate he tried to think, but his hunger pushed everything else aside. Above him, he heard a thump then feet scampering, their rhythmic sound tromping down a staircase nearby. It sounded right outside the door.

“Hurry!” Abby called.

“I’m hurrying,” Hazel replied.

He wasn’t sure what they were up to, but it didn’t involve him, so he left it, concentrating on his meal. Licking the bowl clean, he heaved a contented sigh. Now he could concentrate on his current predicament.

The biggest question was what to do. Why had the Mailbox sent him to Stan, other than to recuperate, obviously? Any further assistance, well... Ford didn’t want Stan involved in his fight against Bill, not with a family. It was the same reason he hadn’t wanted to involve Shermie. _Except Shermie didn’t ruin my chances at the best tech school in the country._ Ford growled to himself. This wasn’t the time for blame. Stanley was here. Stanley was helping even if he didn’t know it was Ford. Would he anyway? It’d been years...

He’d contemplated tracking Stan down and asking for his help before he’d been cursed. There’d been no solid plan, only the stray thought that Stan probably knew all sorts of criminal type things. Hideouts, weapons dealings, money scams, and things like that. Looking around the cozy bathroom, Ford realized how wrong he’d been and how poorly he thought of his twin.

_I wonder if Ma knows about this? Shermie? Why didn’t they tell me?_ Ford sat, his tail limp on the towel he’d been laying on. Did they not trust him not to get angry? It’s true, he was still hurt over the West Coast Tech scholarship, but surely they would’ve told him! Of course, Stanley could’ve lied about his family. He always was good with shifting blame away from himself and hiding the truth. There were too many uncertainties and not enough data for him to formulate any cohesive reason. He fully believed his mother might not trust him. She had a habit of trying to make everything seem fine when it wasn’t. Not that he wasn’t much better. He didn’t trust her with knowing more than vague details about his life. Hell, at this point he didn’t trust himself with his life. Not with Bill possessing him, at least in human form.

It was strange. The entire time he’d been a dog, Bill hadn’t tried to take over his body once, as far as he knew. He’d always woken up where he’d gone to sleep. Was it because he found Ford in dog form beneath him?

Who was he kidding? Bill thought everyone was beneath him.

He stood and began to pace, doing laps in the small space. Three steps, turn. Three steps, turn. The pattern repeated and he was no closer to any answers. “Family is key”, the first words of the Mailbox’s note bolded and underlined themselves in his mind. Each time he dismissed them, they came back.

_Assuming the mailbox is correct, then Stanley is the key to helping me out of my situation, but how? I can’t ask him for help. This is my fault, my mess, but…_

Ford paused, looking at the door. Through it, he could hear something. The television? No, it was someone reading a story. Suddenly it struck him who he was hearing. He trotted to the door and pressed his ear against it. Sure enough, he heard Nick Nightly doing his best impression of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. He was still reading _The House at Pooh Corner_.

Nick Nightly’s radio show had been a wonderful discovery last July. The eclectic show started off the night reading children’s bedtime stories before transitioning to a call in show discussing all matters of the paranormal. Nick himself was a delight to listen to. He joked with his callers, but was never derogatory. Sometimes he’d tell stories of places he’d visited when he was younger and his supernatural encounters. It was nice to hear someone besides Ford himself take the world’s weirdness seriously, even if Nick was doing it for entertainment. It’d won Ford over after one show.

Pressing harder, longing for the friendly voice, Ford nearly lost his balance when the door popped open. Apparently it hadn’t been latched properly when he’d been brought round two of his supper. Carefully poking his head out, he finally got a good view of Stan’s home.

The bathroom was off the kitchen, set back in the house. To his immediate right was a set of stairs up to the second story. To his left was the pantry and, oddly enough, laundry room. He moved into the kitchen, noting that the table sat four, but only had two placemats on it. The other two places had coloring books and crayons strewn between them. A partial wall beside the table created a border between the kitchen and the living room. Creeping along the wall, Ford noted a painted white door to his left before the kitchen counter started. It had to be the one Stan let Hazel in through. 

Nick was still reading as he poked his head around the wall. The living room held a television, a padded chair, coffee table, an end table with a lamp on it next to the chair, and a loveseat. On the small sofa Abby sat next to Hazel, a blanket tucked across their laps. The little girl leaned her head on the older woman’ arm, but her eyes were fixed on the black table top radio sitting on the lower of two shelves affixed to the back wall. Her eyes drooped and she jerked, catching herself as Nick’s voice lulled her toward sleep. A clock on the wall told Ford it was nearly eight thirty. He wondered where Stan was.

“And that’s it for this chapter,” Nick said. “Tomorrow we’ll finish up _The House at Pooh Corner_. I hope you’ll join me tomorrow for more Bedtime Stories, but now it’s time for all good kiddies to go to bed. Goodnight Sunshine, I love you.”

“Good night, Daddy,” Abby said sleepily. “I love you.”

Ford froze. _Wait, what?_

“Come on Sweetheart,” Hazel said.

_Stanley is Nick Nightly? There’s no way. They don’t even sound the same! And...and...I would know! I’d know my...own...twin…_ Ford’s heart plummeted. He’d been listening to Nick Nightly for over six months and it didn’t once occur to him that they were related. All the praise he’d heaped onto Nick, he’d actually been heaping on Stan. All the warm satisfaction he’d gotten from listening to Nick was suddenly overshadowed by the anger he felt for being tricked. Except he hadn’t been tricked by Stan, but his own inability to distinguish his own twin’s voice.

“I’m not tired. I can stay up,” Abby protested, rubbing her eyes. 

“Your dad will be grouchy if you’re still up when he gets home,” Hazel chided kindly.

She pulled off the blanket and urged Abby to her feet. The little girl stood, then began to trudge to the kitchen.

Ford watched his niece, still unable to move even though a part of his brain screamed at him to get back to the bathroom. They didn’t know he wouldn’t hurt them. Plenty of animals were docile when near death, but once they’d gotten a little strength back they’d claw and bite to escape. He should’ve run back and waited, but it was too late.

“Heavens, looks like our guest got out,” Hazel said, rounding the table. She frowned. “I told Stan to have Howard do something about that door. Who has a bathroom door that swings out? Someone who decided to do their own home repairs, but doesn’t bother to fix their mistakes, that’s who! Where did he go?”

Flattening himself, Ford used the table as cover, hoping she wouldn’t see him until he could sneak back into the bathroom. Hazel checked the pantry next then started up the stairs. Suddenly he heard a chair scrape against the hardwood. Whipping his head up, he saw Abby take a seat in the chair and reach for her coloring books. She glanced down and waved.

“Hi puppy. Did you come out for storytime? Daddy does the best voices. I really like his Tigger voice; his Pooh Bear too.”

Ford didn’t move.

“Ah! There he is.” Hazel came around, spotting him on the floor. “Well, aren’t you a quiet one?”

Squatting down, she held out her hand for him to sniff and when he didn’t move, too caught up in his own mounting horror and shame, she reached out and ran her hand along his head.

“Maybe too quiet. Were you abused, sweetheart?”

He stared blankly at Hazel, belatedly realizing what she’d said, but too shocked by being petted to move. Why did someone petting him feel...nice?

“What’s abused mean?” Abby asked.

“It means someone hurt him really badly,” Hazel explained. “Some people aren’t nice.”

“Oh, like Chase when he poured glue on my fingers.”

Hazel’s eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened, her fingers stilling in Ford’s fur. “Yes. Exactly like that. I thought you weren’t sitting next to Chase anymore.”

The little girl ducked her head, curling her shoulders up and furiously scribbling with her crayon. “The new teacher moved him back. Said alphabetical order was better.”

“Did you tell her you’re not supposed to sit next to each other?”

Abby nodded, biting her bottom lip. “I hit him.”

“Did he do something?” Hazel asked. She shifted so she was facing the chair. Abby tucked her legs underneath her and hunched further over the table. “Abby?” Reaching over, she began rubbing slow circles on her back as she waited for a reply.

“He took Mommy’s Clip and wouldn’t give it back, so I hit him. But now I’m in trouble. Daddy had to come in and I have to stay in tomorrow’s lunch recess.” 

“So that’s why you weren’t talkative about school today,” Hazel sighed. “You shouldn’t hit. You should have gotten a teacher, but I don’t fault you for doing it. Did he hurt you?”

“He pulled my hair. It really, really hurt! And I lost my bobby pins. Chase is mean. A meanie mean pants!

She crossed her arms and her eyes shimmered, on the verge of tears and suddenly Ford hoped she’d given the kid a black eye. He sounded no better than Crampelter back in the day. How many times had he and Stan fought that bully and his goons? There were too many to count, and their teachers and parents hadn’t done a damn thing! Indignation and righteous fury borne from years of abuse spurred him to act. No one hurt a child like that, even another child.

Jumping to his feet, Ford shoved himself between Hazel and Abby, knocking the older woman on her butt. He pressed his muzzle against Abby’s legs and gazed up into her red teary face. He knew that look, he and Stan had worn it too. They’d comforted each other alone in their room, but Abby was an only child as far as he’d seen. 

Ford whined softly, letting his tail wag, staring up hopefully at the small child. She set aside her crayon, a smile spreading across her face.

“Looks like your new friend doesn’t want you to be sad either,” Hazel chuckled, standing. She rubbed her aching knees.

“Maybe Daddy and me can keep him,” Abby said. “If Jelly and Peanut say yes too.”

He let her pet him; small hands stroking and scratching his head and face. It felt nice, though more than anything he wanted to give her a hug. He didn’t know what Stan had done after his meeting with the teacher, but he suspected this Chase wouldn’t be sitting next to Abby tomorrow.

“Shake boy.” The order caught him off guard, but he couldn’t resist the sunny smile she was giving him when moments before her tears were falling. He held up his right paw and offered it to her.

“He did it! Oo! High six!”

She held her hand up, splaying six small fingers for him to see. Ford’s heart nearly stopped. He understood. He was already swimming in a sea of guilt, anger, but sympathy tossed him a life jacket. 

She was like him. He wasn’t the only one in the family.

“I guess he doesn’t know that one,” she said, glumly, lowering her hand.

_No, I do, it’s just…_ his mind trailed off. The last time he’d seen Stanley, he’d asked for a High Six. No one had since, not even Bill. He’d called him Sixer, a nickname that’d once been Stan’s alone. Now it’d been turned into a mockery of the sentiment it’d once held, but not the High Six.

Stan had obviously taught her. (Of course he would!) Just because it’d been their special thing didn’t mean Stan wouldn’t share it with his child. His polydactyl child. 

Hesitantly he lifted his paw again and made a motion to mimic hers. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, but she’d asked and the last time he’d denied someone it…

She smacked her hand into his paw with glee.

“High Six!” 

_I wonder if I have the strength to follow her to school tomorrow,_ Ford thought. If someone was bullying her, then someone needed to be her shield. What better shield was there than a dog who understood more than the average dog?

* * *

It was nearly one by the time Stan returned home. Ford lay in the living room where he’d been lounging at Hazel’s feet after she’d put Abby to bed. He’d wanted to go upstairs, but realized after the first couple of steps he didn’t have the strength. It didn’t help that he saw a pair of glowing eyes at the top. Apparently the cat, Peanut, liked to watch the stairs through the railings. He didn’t want to deal with cats right now, so left them their sanctuary.

Stan greeted Hazel with a quiet hello. “I see you let him out.”

“He let himself out,” she said, reaching down to give him a scratch on his ears. “The bathroom door didn’t shut.”

“Ah. He hasn’t given you any trouble?” he asked.

“No, he’s been well behaved. You’re right, he was dumped. Probably belonged to a college kid who couldn’t take him home.”

He hummed and squatted down, offering Ford his hand to sniff. Ford bristled at first, old anger rearing its head, but quickly realized he was being foolish. He was a dog and a guest in Stan’s house. His brother was just being friendly to an animal that he’d rescued and didn’t deserve to be growled at. He relented, allowing Stan to pet him.

“How was Abby?” Stan asked, rubbing gently between Ford’s ears. 

It didn’t take long for Ford to lean into the pets. Stupid dog tendencies! 

“She told me you got called to the school, Chase Peltzer stole her clip and she punched him.”

Stan let out a frustrated groan. “Mrs. Wormwood is on maternity leave. The new teacher, Miss Contrite, who is the complete opposite of that word in every sense, decided to move the kids so they were seated in alphabetical order.”

“Which put them next to each other again. Didn’t Mrs. Wormwood leave instructions not to?”

“She did and the bitch ignored them,” Stan snarled. Withdrawing his hand, he stood up with a small growl. “She and I had words. They won’t be next to each other tomorrow and hopefully she’ll be talking to his parents too. Though, I don’t look forward to Mr. Peltzer deciding to call into the station again to have it out with me on air.”

“Your producer wouldn’t allow that.”

“Rufus? Hell no. He’d never allow anything like that to happen again. I’m the second highest rated personality they have. Of course, it’s really the first hour most people listen to, the next couple are their own beast.

“Still, there’s a part of me that wants to let him through. I have enough of a fan base that if he started going after me or called Abby a freak, they’d come to my defense. But that’s not the type of show Rufus or I want. Honestly, he’d love to put on radio plays again like we did back in college, but it won’t happen.”

“As long as you’re on top of things.” Hazel stood and picked up her things from the far end of the sofa. “Let me know if you need some back up.”

“I already spoke with Henry, so he’s aware.”

“Good. Glad to hear my brother is doing his job and not just waiting for retirement,” she said. Throwing on her coat and wrapping her scarf around her neck, she checked her pockets for her keys and scooped up her large purse. “I’ll see you tomorrow Stan.”

They walked to the door and Ford followed.

“Thanks again Hazel. I’ll have your check ready when you come over tomorrow.”

_Wait, she was paid? So not a relative?_ Ford was confused.

“You take care and call the vet in the morning.”

“I will. Don’t worry,” Stan replied.

She waved goodnight and headed out to her car. Stan stepped out into the enclosed porch, watching her depart before shivering and going back in. He left the porch light on as he puttered around the kitchen getting himself a glass of water and taking a few slices of sandwich meat from the fridge. 

Ford watched, taking a seat next to the table and reviewing the information he’d just learned. Hazel was paid to babysit Abby, so she probably wasn’t related. Her brother Henry could help out with the Chase situation, whether that was at the school or at the radio station was unknown. Then there was the last bit; Stan had gone to college.

His twin sitting in huge lecture halls taking notes studiously was absolutely ludicrous. Stan had copied off him for their last two years of high school! He didn’t know how to take proper notes, let alone pass a class without Ford’s help. How? Why? Ford was completely confused. Stan having a secret family and being Nick Nightly was shocking enough, but a college graduate? The world had to have flipped upside down and was walking backwards!

Maybe he’d done it to impress Abby’s mother? Ford could see that. Stan bumbling through college, having lied on his application or gotten in on falsified test scores, only to get caught. Because he always eventually got caught. Most women would’ve been angry at Stan’s antics. Yet somehow he’d won this woman over and they’d loved each other and had a child. There was more to this and speculating on his sister-in-law’s sense wasn’t doing him any good. Besides, whatever the reason or means, the fact Stan had gone to college didn’t change. 

“Here.” Stan set a paper plate of deli meat in front of Ford.

A quick sniff told him it was pastrami. Their mother used to make pastrami sandwiches for them when they were kids. Licking his lips, Ford gulped them down, wishing it’d been a full sandwich.

“Glad you liked it. We’ll get you regular dog food tomorrow. Can’t keep feeding you cat and people food,” Stan said.

He gave Ford another pat and finished his water. 

“Welp, time to see if you need to use the great outdoors. Be glad you have a fur coat. It’s freezing out there.”

If Ford could lodge only one complaint about being turned into an animal, it was the loss of dignity. Up until that moment he hadn’t felt its loss keenly, more a general sense of embarrassment. Now, having his twin stand in the shelter of the porch while he ducked around the corner to go do his business out of sight was mortifying. He vowed to learn how to use the toilet with his altered anatomy if it was the last thing he did, because 1AM in the dead of winter was a horrible time to take a piss.

Afterwards, Stan shut Ford up in the bathroom again with the light off and went upstairs to bed.

_I have no choice,_ Ford thought, listening to Stan turn on the water in the upstairs bathroom. _I’m going to need Stanley’s help. I just need to figure out how to tell him I’m me and convince him to help find a way to break this curse. That’s it. Once it’s done, I can handle Bill on my own. I was doing all right. It wasn’t perfect, but I was surviving and with this rest I’m sure I can come up with a way to keep Bill out of our dimension. All I need is to find a way to let Stanley know I’m his brother and hope he’s willing to make up for West Coast Tech._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a bit of a beating in editing, but I think it's finally there. Next chapter is going to need some work too, so updates will continue to be slow for a while.
> 
> You never realize how rough something is until you go back and reread it. My beta reader keeps writing "violet" and "all the purple" when I'm writing Ford POV. I can't help it! Ford just lends himself to purple prose. I'm getting better about cutting that back in the later chapters, but these early chapters... it's all over the place. *sigh*


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! Whew! This chapter was very rough and needed a serious rewrite before I posted. It ended up being very long, so (after conferring with my beta reader) I've split the chapter. As a result there won't be such a large time gap between posting this chapter and the next.

Dr. Lofting hemmed and hawed over the dog that Abby wanted to name Chip, as in Chocolate Chip. It’d match with their cats, Jelly Bean and Toffee Peanut. Stan wasn’t even sure they were keeping the dog yet.

In the twelve plus hours he’d known the dog, Stan found him to be very well behaved, if not a bit odd. This morning’s surprise was finding him trying to use the toilet. It would not be forgotten, nor would the startled yelp as he slipped and smacked his chest on the rim. Stan had busted up laughing, earning him a growl and an angry bark. He didn’t blame him, though. It was downright frigid. Who wanted to pee outside in this weather? 

“We need a stool sample to make sure he doesn’t have worms or other parasites that could account for his low weight,” Dr. Lofting said, hands going to the dog’s mouth and pulling back the lips. “His teeth and gums are in good condition, though they have a strange stain to them.”

“Strange stain?” Stan peered at the teeth, noting the brown tint along the front ones.

“They look like coffee stains. Coffee is very bad for dogs. It can be lethal. The only way he got these was if someone was letting him drink it, and if that’s the case, it’s a miracle he isn’t dead. It takes a lot of coffee it takes to create stains like this.”

“Yikes!” Stan winced. “You sure Doc?”

“My dentist complains about the same type of stains on my teeth, so I’m pretty sure.”

Stan frowned slightly. This was more evidence that the dog belonged to a college student. Some of them did the stupidest things to their pets thinking that if they could handle it, so could the animal.

“I’m going to write up feeding instructions and recommend an appropriate food for him. Don’t go with store brands. They have a lot of filler in them and he needs more protein if we’re to get him back to an acceptable weight.” Dr. Lofting took a prescription pad from the counter behind him and began writing.

The dog sat on the lowered exam table, watching the veterinarian intently, but not wiggling or trying to escape. That was another surprising thing, his manners were impeccable. He rarely barked, didn’t fight Stan getting in the car that morning or going outside, stuck to his side without a leash, and didn’t flee or whine the second they got into the office. It was like the dog actually understood what was going on.

“As for your earlier question,” Dr. Lofting paused to tear off the prescription and hand it to Stan, “I can call over to Dr. Bass and Dr. Clarence’s offices to see if they had a patient with his distinct coloring and toes, but my guess is he was dumped by someone who wasn’t from the area.”

“Thanks Doc,” Stan said. “If they have, let me know.”

“I will. Are you planning on keeping the dog if we don’t find an owner?”

He waited as Stan contemplated. 

“Possibly. If the cats don’t like him, we’ll see if someone else can take him.”

The dog gave Stan the most ‘don’t you dare’ look he’d ever seen. It was almost human. He had to be projecting, it was just a dog. Considering his behavior this morning though, Stan wouldn’t be surprised if he was a genius dog. _Just what I need, a dog that’s as smart or smarter than me. The cat’s thinking they are is bad enough._

Dr. Lofting looped a leash around the dog’s neck and muzzle in something akin to a makeshift halter then called out the door for one of his technicians. When the woman arrived, he handed her the leash.

“C’mon pup,” she said, giving the leash a gentle tug.

The dog hesitated, throwing Stan an unsure look, before quietly following her. 

“We’ll try to get a stool sample. Why don’t you head up front to get the food and maybe a collar and leash? We keep some on hand for this type of emergency.” Dr. Lofting ushered Stan out, taking the dog’s file with him and handing it to the receptionist, explaining to her about the prescription.

“You’ll need Science Nutrient CN. We have it in chicken and beef.” The receptionist pointed to the shelves along the far wall of the waiting room.

It took a minute to spot the large bags on the lower shelf. Grumbling about the price, Stan hefted one bag, grabbing a purple leash and collar combination from the display nearby. With a short grunt, he dropped them on the counter. The receptionist started ringing up the transaction.

“Will this be everything?” she asked.

“For now, unless the Doc wants to add anything else.”

“A dewormer, but only if the stool sample comes back positive,” Dr. Lofting replied, scribbling notes in his file and sticking it back into the filing organizer on the desk. 

The receptionist nodded and finished taking Stan’s transaction.

After paying, Stan took the dog food out to the car. The red El Diablo had been with him since he was sixteen. He’d bought it with the money from his first (mostly) honest job. During his three years on the streets, it’d been his home and a place of safety. It was a good vehicle. When Abby was older he’d use it to teach her how to change her own oil; he’d already taught her how to get in if she’d accidentally locked the keys inside. 

A smile crossed his face. That’d been a fun afternoon. She wasn’t strong enough to pull the window down on her own, but she’d managed to wiggle the wire hanger in to pull up the lock. Her excited squeal when she finally succeeded was precious. It’d reminded him of how Ford used to get when they were kids.

_Ford. I wonder... Nope._ Stan popped the trunk and dumped the dog food in. He wasn’t doing this today. He wasn’t going to start reminiscing about his twin when the man had made it clear for years he wanted nothing to do with Stan.

Caryn Pines tried to be the bridge between her sons, but Ford was stubborn. As far as Stan knew, his twin had zero knowledge of where and what Stan was doing with his life. Part of it was Stan’s fault for having no contact, but knowing his mother, Caryn had dropped hints to Ford. He just didn’t give a damn about Stan, end of story.

_That’s harsh,_ he chided himself. _Even if it’s true. You make one lousy mistake and you’re out for the rest of your life. Why bother Mr. All Important Scientist with mundane things like meeting your niece or giving your grieving brother support?_

He’d thought the pain of losing Carla would be about equal to losing Ford, but it was so much worse. At least Ford was still alive. Carla was buried in a plot in Eugene. The only person from his side to attend the funeral had been his mother. The rest didn’t know.

Stan could’ve contacted Ford. Maybe it would’ve made Ford want to speak to him for once, if only to say “sorry for your loss”.

Slamming the trunk shut, Stan tried to think happier thoughts. His wife’s funeral wasn’t a tool to guilt Ford into talking to him. Not then and not now. 

_Happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts._

Abby wanted to keep the dog. Claimed he was her new friend at breakfast and tried giving him her bowl of cereal. The dog seemed fond of her too, sitting beside her chair wagging his tail. He’d tried to follow them out of the house when they’d left for the bus stop. Stan had to shoo the animal back inside.

He chuckled to himself. _I can’t believe she really wants to name him Chocolate Chip. With his paws though, Sixlet seems a better choice and it’s still chocolate-y._

The moment he thought it, he regretted it. It was too close to Ford’s nickname, Sixer. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he breathed in and out heavily. Damn it, why was he thinking about Ford so much right now? _He doesn’t care about you, get over it! He wrote you off years ago. So why today?_ Stan didn’t know, but he needed to get control before this spiralled out of control and left him breaking down in the parking lot. He should call Greg and June when he got home. He couldn’t sit in his house with just the cats for company, no matter how their purring calmed him. He needed a friendly voice. 

He returned to the clinic to find the technician waiting in the door of the exam room.

“Ah, there you are. We got a sample. He refused to go until I turned my back though,” she said.

Stan chuckled. “He’s a prissy one.” The dog flattened his ears and glared at him. “I guess someone taught him modesty.”

“Apparently.” 

Removing the price tags from the leash and collar he’d bought, Stan fastened the collar around the dog’s neck. Then he attached the leash so the tech could remove the loaner.

“Dr. Lofting is checking the sample now, if you’ll wait a few minutes.” She motioned him back into the exam room.

Taking a seat, he waited with the dog sitting at his feet.

“Abby wants to name you after a candy like the cats, but I think since you’re a dog, you deserve something different,” he said. 

The dog raised one paw and set it on his knee, showing all six of his toes. He gazed up at Stan, his tail thumping on the floor. Stan took the paw and shook it, earning him a huff as the dog pulled it out of his hand. 

“Don’t like your paws touched, got it.”

The dog shook his head before purposefully setting both front paws on his lap. Once again he stared at Stan intently. Every move felt like he was trying to tell Stan something.

_Did he just shake his head no?_ Stan could’ve sworn he had. Forget genius, what was this dog? An experiment escaped from a secret government facility? Some of his callers were certain the government was hiding the truth about aliens or what’d really happened Amelia Earhart. Any sensible person would’ve dismissed them as wackos, but Stan didn’t, at least not outright. He’d seen things during his years on the streets.

Not just the ugly and often brutal side of humanity, but the mysterious. The old abandoned hospital in Florida sprang to mind. The shadows that moved when no one was there. The whispered voices as he’d tried to sleep, warning him of the Surgeon. The pinching, the scratches, and the sense he wasn’t alone in the empty room he’d claimed as his own that night as the eye of the hurricane passed over. If he and Ford hadn’t found the Jersey Devil as kids, he might have dismissed it as the work of his stressed and terrified mind, but he couldn’t. 

Who was he kidding? He’d encouraged Ford’s love of the weird and wonderful. Enjoyed it nearly as much too. Nick Nightly had been born out of his love of the creepy and mysterious. 

Stan tried to figure out what the dog wanted. He’d been talking names...of course that’s what he was doing. Trying to tell Stan his name.

“Okay, so a name with six, twelve or-” 

Immediately one paw was removed. The dog’s ears perked forward and he eagerly wagged his tail harder.

“Six or paw. Foot? Okay, a name with foot or paw in it is opening yourself up to a lot of jokes.”

The dog whined, pawing him, the claws scraping his jeans and leaving Stan uncomfortable. He really didn’t like where this was leading. 

“Six Toes?” The dog gave a low wuff, pulled the paw off then slapped it back and pressed it hard enough that his toes spread out. Stan’s throat constricted and he clamped down hard on the voice in his head protesting that he couldn’t use _that_ nickname. But why not? Ford didn’t care. Hell, he’d probably banished the name from his vocabulary simply because it was a nickname Stan had given him. It was free real estate now.

The dog gave another whine, desperately pawing at his leg. Six toes splayed for him to see, practically begging him to say Sixer. Stan wasn’t the only one who could think up the name Sixer. If it was the dog’s name it was the dog’s name.

“Just Six or Sixlet, or-” 

“Bad news,” Dr. Lofting said, entering the room and disrupting Stan’s naming attempts. “It looks like he’s got worms. Let’s give him a dose of oral dewormer. Can you get him back on the exam table for me?” 

Dr. Lofting opened a box marked dewormer and pulled out a tube. The dog sniffed and flattened his ears, pressing himself into Stan’s legs as Stan tried to stand.

“It’ll be okay, boy,” Stan said, giving him a shove so he could finally get up.

The dog (Stan decided he’d call him Six temporarily), refused to move. Talking in soft, reassuring tones like he had for Abby when she’d gotten her last round of vaccinations, he managed to get Six to relax. Dr. Lofting hastily administered the medicine with the skill of some who’d been doing this for years. When it was all done, Stan paid for the visit and headed to the car.

Six sulked in the back as they drove away, making Stan chuckle every time he glanced back. He still wanted to call Greg and June. At least one of them would be home; June had given birth to her first child only two months ago. Hopefully he didn’t wake them when he called. He remembered the first few months with a newborn.

A particularly sappy love song wailed through the car’s speakers and Stan switched the channel only to find the same song on that station too. He wasn’t in the mood. Flipping to the college’s radio station, he found it playing a tender yearning ballad and promptly turned it off. Partially to fill the silence and keep his negative thoughts from taking over, he began telling Six a bit about himself.

“It’s just Abigail and me,” Stan said, taking a turn that took them past Quentin College. “My wife died two years ago. She graduated from here.” He gestured with one hand to the stone buildings to his left. “Masters degree. Talked me into getting my AA. Carla was one heck of a woman.”

He smiled. They’d had good times there and part of him wished he’d been able to finish up the Bachelor’s degree he’d been working on before Carla’s accident, but earning money to keep Abby with a roof over her head was more important. He almost wanted to stop and tour the whole school, wander around in nostalgia, but the parking fees were a pain. Instead, he settled for telling Six about the time Greg talked him into taking guitar lessons and they’d broken into the music hall because the acoustics were fabulous.

Six listened, his ears up, taking in every word Stan said as they circled the campus twice before finally heading home.

* * *

On one hand, Ford appreciated being taken to the veterinarian. He’d been worried he might have ingested parasites. On the other, the vet had the worst timing! Stan had been so close to calling him Sixer. Ford could’ve used the nickname as a bread crumb trail to his true identity. But Dr. Loftly or Lofting, (whatever it was) had derailed Stan’s train of thought. On top of that, the dewormer smelled awful and tasted worse.

Ford hunkered down in the backseat of the Stanley-Mobile and sulked. The sappy love songs on the radio irritated him and he was grateful when Stan finally shut it off. At last the car was silent, letting him grumble about the morning in peace.

“It’s just Abigail and me,” Stan said, causing Ford to glance his way. “My wife died two years ago. She graduated from here.”

Ford lifted his head from his paws and peeked out the window at the large brick and stone buildings they were passing. Young people were walking between them, dressed in parkas and carrying heavy backpacks. He remembered doing that not too long ago himself.

Stan continued talking, saying his wife had graduated with a Masters and he’d gotten an Associates degree, but Ford wasn’t fully listening. His mind stuck on what Stan had said first. That his wife had died.

His brother was a widower. That wasn’t common; it wasn’t even something a person their age thought about. Widows and widowers were old or had spouses who’d died serving their country. Logically Ford knew that wasn’t true, people died in accidents or from disease, so people his age did and could lose a spouse, but that always happened to someone else.

_This explains why Hazel babysits,_ he thought glumly. _Dammit! Why didn’t anyone tell me? Ma knows. She has to because she keeps wanting us to make up. Does Shermie know? Maybe? But if he did, why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t they tell me about any of this? I don’t understand._ He wanted to punch something or yell. Why had he been left in the dark about Stan’s life? Did Stan even know where Ford lived? They were so close; Dreary, Oregon wasn’t more than a couple hours away. All Stan had to do was pick up a phone and call, providing their mother had given Stan his phone number. She’d never given Stan’s to him that he recalled or if she had it’d gotten lost amongst his notes somewhere. So why hadn’t Stan reached out?

He didn’t know. It seemed logical to call one’s family, but Ford hadn’t known about Stan’s marriage or Abby until yesterday. His twin must really think he wasn’t welcome in the family. Yes, he’d been thrown out and yes, their father had given him an impossible ultimatum, but it was in the heat of the moment. Surely Stan knew he could come home if things were truly dire. Filbrick would’ve let him back in if Stanley showed he’d matured and was responsible. Right? 

That’s what Ford had always believed. 

Suddenly he wasn’t sure.

“So, Carla and I used to meet up between classes when I started going here.” 

Ford stared out at the collection of stone benches under large ornamental trees Stan indicated. His brother’s tone was soft and loving as he spoke. He couldn’t remember Stan ever talking about a girl he’d dated like that before.

“We’d sit at the benches over there by that statue of the founder astride his horse backwards -school lore is his outstretched hand points the way to his hidden treasure in the hills- and eat lunch. We couldn’t afford to eat out at the Student Union, so we’d make picnic lunches. After Abby was born, I’d bring her and we’d trade off so whoever didn’t have class would take her for a bit. We had to be careful with our course schedules and occasionally Greg would have to watch her if there was no other choice, but it all worked out.”

Guilt churned in his gut. Abby was about six, so that meant she’d been born about the same time he moved to Gravity Falls. If he’d known, he could’ve offered to take her every so often, like during final exams. Given Stan and Carla a chance to study without distractions. He’d finished his schooling and he could’ve set his experiments aside for a couple days. But why should he feel guilty? It wasn’t his fault Stan hadn’t asked for help when he’d needed it the most! 

Stan kept talking, unaware that he was adding to Ford’s frustration. Stories bled into one another as they circled the college. He and Greg inadvertently broke into the music hall they thought they had permission to be in after hours. Carla gave a tongue lashing to a professor who thought women shouldn’t be in psychology in front of his whole class and the department head. The prank wars of the student radio staff that he’d joined in. They were all glimpses into Stan’s life over the last decade, bits of information that alternately made Ford amused and irritated that he’d been left out of the loop.

At least it sounded like Stan had made some good friends that were there when he needed them.

By the time they returned home, Ford had a better idea of what Stan’s life had been like. It was by no means complete, but there was more of a frame than there had been last night. His emotions weren’t much calmer, though. Anger, guilt, sadness, and an overwhelming sense of ‘why didn’t Stan come to me’ crowded his mind, tamping down his normal logical thought process. He was exhausted and wanted to sleep. Hopefully another nap would help him sort things out.

Stan hung his leash up on the coat hooks then ducked back outside to get the dog food from the trunk. While he was gone, Ford wandered into the bathroom and took a few licks from his water bowl to wash out the remaining taste of the dewormer. A grunt from the doorway announced Stan’s return with the heavy bag.

“Let’s fill up your bowl,” he said, setting the bag down and hunting around for scissors to open it. 

Ford’s eyes drifted to the table and Abby’s crayon box, still on it from last night. She’d wanted to draw him this morning, but didn’t have time before school. The memory warmed him. She was a sweet kid, as far as he could tell. Stan was doing a good job raising her by himself. Ford needed to find a way to communicate with him. The ‘why’ questions wouldn’t leave him alone. Giving the crayons a hard look, he began to formulate a plan. 

_I wonder if crayons taste as bad as that dewormer? I hope not, because learning to write with my mouth is going to take time._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the second half of what was originally Chapter 4 (and still is in my main document because shifting all the chapters around now is a pain.) We'll call it Chapter 5 here, but know it's really Chapter 4.5.

Stan left the bathroom door partially open, giving Six some privacy while he ate. Shrugging out of his coat, he hung it up on the hook by the door. For a moment he contemplated whether he should work in his office or make good on calling his in-laws. After a short debate, he picked up the kitchen phone and dialed Greg and June’s number. As it rang, he hoped he wasn’t waking them.

June, Carla’s sister, had married his best friend Greg six months before Carla’s death. Carla had been a brides’ maid, Stan had been Greg’s Best Man, and Abby their flower girl. It was their fault for introducing the two, so it made sense that they were in the wedding party. His Best Man speech still got chuckles whenever it was brought up.

A part of him missed living in Eugene with them, but it was too painful and his job hadn’t been as promising as he’d hoped. Moving back to Dreary with its lower cost of living and established group of friends seemed a better choice. Rufus had helped him get a job at the station he worked at and Elmer had introduced him to his brother. When he’d needed a babysitter, Howard had introduced him to Hazel, and within a few weeks of moving back, Stan was suddenly in a better position than he had been in Eugene. Hazel’s brother being Abby’s elementary school principal was a pleasant surprise. He and the office staff had been supportive when Chase had started bullying Abby. 

The phone rang a few times while Stan watched the front field through the kitchen window.

“Hello?” a groggy female voice asked.

“Hey June, it’s Stan.”

“Hey you. What’ere you doin’? How’s Abby?”

“We’re doing all right. You sound beat. I woke you didn’t I?”

June gave a laugh that reminded him of Carla, only rougher. It was due to her lack of sleep, no doubt. “You didn’t wake me, your nephew did. He wanted ta be fed. I just put him in his rocker an’ he can stay there while I talk ta an adult for five minutes.”

“Careful June, your accent’s showing,” he teased.

“Fuck you. I can be as Jersey as I want, whenever I want.”

He laughed. 

“So, why’d ya call?”

“I wanted to check in with you guys, make sure you’re doing all right. Claire still planning on coming out next month?”

June sighed heavily. “Yeah. Mom’s comin’ out. Greg’s Mom, Sandy, left last week, finally. She’s all about bein’ grandma and kept givin’ me helpful tips. Drove me right up the wall, but she meant well. It’s not like I don’t know what to do. I used to babysit Abby as a baby after all. Anyway, Mom said she planned to stay with you a few days too.”

“Oh, that’s news to me,” Stan said, leaning against the wall. “She hasn’t called about it.”

“I’m sure she will. I’ll even jog her memory next time she calls.”

“Yeah, she’s a bit distracted with making plans to see you guys.”

“That doesn’t mean she won’t wanna see you or Abby,” June stated. “But I admit, new baby, Mom gets tunnel vision.”

“That she does,” Stan chuckled, remembering his mother-in-law and how she’d descended on their apartment, dragging her husband along. He’d been excited to meet his first granddaughter, but was more reserved about it than his wife. They’d stayed a week and it was the first time in forever Stan had gotten positive attention from a father figure.

He’d really needed it. He still looked up to John McCorkle as a steadying force and example of what a father should be like. The older man understood Stan’s past and accepted him despite it, giving him what advice he could. 

“So, the other reason I called was, it looks like we have a dog.”

“Wait...Stanley, did you get a puppy?”

“No...he’s full grown. I think some college student dumped him. I pulled him out of the mud yesterday. He’s apparently a husky. And get this...he’s got six toes on each paw.”

“Another one! I’m gonna think you’re startin’ a collection or something,” she laughed.

“Hey! I just want my kid to know she’s not alone out there and if another six-toed animal is maybe staying permanently with us, so be it.”

“Maybe?”

“It’s not a guarantee…”

“Whatever you say Stan.”

“If no one claims him, then he’s ours. Probably. Unless the cats kill him in a winner takes all brawl.”

“You keep sayin’ your cats are terrors, but I’ve never seen it.”

“They hide it well.” He paused, unsure if he wanted to say the idea that’d been niggling in the back of his head the latter part of the car ride home out loud. “Hey, June?”

“Hmm?”

“I was thinking, when Claire comes out, we might take a weekend trip to Eugene. I’d get a motel room so you wouldn’t have to put us up. The weather will be a bit warmer and I could clean up the grave site a bit.”

“Oh. That would be nice. I haven’t gotten out all winter. I wanted ta place some holly or a wreath there for Christmas, but you know. Pregnant lady. She always loved Christmas.”

“Yeah, she did,” Stan replied softly. “She always wanted a live tree. Those fake ones wouldn’t cut it. Had to traipse up into the hills looking for one. And the mistletoe above the door! Believe you me, we took advantage of it all month long.” 

“I’d believe it. Stan, are you doing okay?”

“Today’s been a bit hard,” he admitted. “I don’t know why, but everything with the dog and suddenly I’m thinking of Carla and I’m telling him stories and…I just needed to hear a friendly voice. I didn’t mean to bring you down too.”

“No, no, it’s fine. We all have our bad days. I’m glad you called. If I can lift your spirits even a bit, I feel I’ve done my sisterly duty. Just know I’ll call you when I’m feeling blue too.” 

He could feel her smile through the line. “Of course. Even if I’m at work, just call the station’s line and Rufus will patch you through. Then we can entertain my listeners with stories of you and Greg’s whirlwind romance and get their opinions on whether that psychic was right.”

“That psychic was your mom! I was twelve!”

He burst out laughing, wiping his eyes with one hand. 

“Just ‘cause you were home sick, didn’t mean you needed to listen in on my private phone calls!” June snapped playfully.

“Not my fault you kept blabbing about it to your friends back home while you were living with us.”

“Oooo, if you were here, I’d smack you.”

Suddenly Stan heard a high pitched whine start, cutting through June’s threats. Little Sammy announced his presence in a wail Stan recognized as “something’s wrong and I don’t know what because I’m a baby”.

“I better let you go,” he said. “It was good talking to you.”

“Same here, you jerk. Tell Abby I love her,” June said. “Good bye.”

“Bye June Bug.”

“I am not a bug!” she laughed.

Feeling better, Stan hung up. Hearing her voice and joking around was enough to drive off any lingering melancholy and he’d learned his mother-in-law planned on visiting. Though he had heard it second hand, so he’d wait for confirmation from Claire herself.

Abby loved it when her grandparents came out. The senior McCorkles made it out west at least twice a year, more if they could. With all their remaining children and Stan in Oregon or Washington, they were determined to be there as much as they could. It was too bad his own mother couldn’t sneak away more than once a year. 

Caryn wanted to visit more, but it was a huge undertaking on her end. She visited Shermie and his family in California first, then lied about going home, taking a flight into Eugene instead. She didn’t take chances when it came to secretly seeing her youngest. She’d weave a web of lies so plausible that neither her elder sons nor her husband had any idea where she actually was for the week after leaving Shermie’s. That’s how it’d been even before Carla died. Funny though, she never visited Ford on her summer visits. It seemed a bit strange, but she always waved it off that her time was limited. She didn’t want Filbrick catching on. 

_Still seems odd_ , he thought as he checked on Six and found the dog snoozing on the bath mat. _Does he go back during Thanksgiving?_ Stan shoved the question aside. Ford was too busy to give a damn about anyone else but himself and his work. 

*

Writing in crayon as a dog was incredibly hard. After waking up from his nap and finding Stan in his office, Ford swiped a loose crayon and some paper from the table. For the last few hours he’d been practicing writing. The crayon tasted waxy, no surprise there. Its paper wrapper eventually loosened and began disintegrating in his mouth and he had to spit it out. His jaw ached from clenching it and his neck was just as bad. 

_I should take a break_ , he thought, dropping the orange crayon to the floor. The paper between his paws was a mess of unsteady lines and unrecognizable shapes. 

The house was quiet. When was the last time Stan had come to check on him? Did he ever leave his office? Ford hoped he wasn’t working on the plans for some doomsday device. He let out a self-depreciating huff. _Right, like Stanley would make that mistake._

Laying his head down, Ford closed his eyes, wishing the soreness away and wondering how to hide his practice scribbles from his twin. Should he be hiding them? He wanted Stan to know who he was so he could help. Mostly. There was a part of him that didn’t, not yet. Stan had spoken to him freely this morning. Would he be that open with Ford if he’d been human? He didn’t think so. They’d not spoken in over a decade and part of that was his own fault. He had messed up badly. With Stan. With Bill. With Fiddleford. At the thought of Fiddleford and their fight, Ford let out a sad whine. Maybe Modoc had been right. Stanford Pines shouldn’t exist. All he did was screw up. 

Ford’s eyes shot open at the sound of Stan’s office door opening.

“So, if the wizard was the cat the whole time instead of…” he muttered to himself before glancing at his watch. “Oh, crap, it’s three twenty. I’ve gotta pick up Abby!”

Stan raced into the kitchen, grabbing his coat and double checking the pockets for his keys. Moments later he sped out the door, locking it behind him and shouting good-bye to Ford. Outside the Stanley-Mobile fired up, but it was another few minutes before Ford heard it back out and drive away.

For the second time since he’d arrived, Ford was left alone in the house. He knew he didn’t have long. He had to hide the evidence. Collecting his practice papers, he walked across the kitchen to the sink. He pawed at the cabinet door underneath. It took a couple tries to get it open, his nose picking up the unmistakable scent of the garbage can. For a moment he wanted to root around in the can for the source of the delicious meat scent. Squashing that impulse, he shoved the papers in and pawed the door shut. There, now there wouldn’t be any questions until he could articulate properly. 

Satisfied, he almost went back to the bathroom, but his curiosity made him pause. He hadn’t heard Stan close the door to his office.

_I wonder what he’s been doing?_

Ford trotted across the family room and into the office.

It was sparse. There was a desk with a typewriter on it, a half typed paper still in the roller. Beside it was a stack of more paper, though from his vantage point, he couldn’t tell if they were typed or not. He assumed they were, given their proximity to the typewriter and the hours Stan had put in that day. A short two-drawer filing cabinet was shoved against the back wall behind the desk, a three shelf bookshelf beside. Ford read the titles, his curiosity increasing as he did. It was a surprising collection, consisting of such titles as; _Words And How To Use Them_ by I. Will Wright, _The Hero’s Journey_ by Joseph Campbell, _The Hobbit_ by J.R.R. Tolkien, and _Plot! Plot! Plot!_ by N.D. Plumme. A few psychology books were on the bottom, next to two on child behavior. They looked well used, their spines showing wear and tear.

 _Stanley always liked adventure stories, so I’m not surprised_ The Hobbit _is here, but he wasn’t big on mythology. So why are those here? And why is there a book on edible flowers and other wild plants?_

It confused him. The psychology books didn’t. They were obviously Carla’s old text books. The child behavior ones just made sense. 

He turned his attention back to the typewriter. The paper lay against the roller, daring him to read it. He had to satisfy the itch to know exactly what Stan had been doing in here all afternoon and to make sure it wasn’t drawing up plans to end the world. Not that Ford thought he really would, at least not seriously. He’d make some crack about, “why would I want to destroy the place? I live here!” Honestly, Stanley may be reckless, but he’d be more likely to save the world than fall for a dream demon’s pretty words. Because that had been the type of child Stan had been. What had changed to make him jealous enough to destroy Ford’s chance at West Coast Tech, he didn’t really know. He had ideas, but...

Rising up on his hind legs, Ford braced himself against the desk and read Stan’s work.

It was dialogue.

The word choice was simplistic, not the normal academic fair he was used to. It wasn’t bad, just not what he was expecting. Ford smiled at a well placed pun. It was a book. So this was what Stan was up to. A children’s book perhaps? It seemed likely given the lack of overly complicated words. 

A tendril of pride wound its way through him as he shifted his gaze to the stack of typed pages beside the typewriter. Since when did Stan want to be an author? There had been the time he’d drawn comics, but he’d stopped abruptly for some reason. Ford had found all the pages, (months worth of drawings), in the garbage one evening and Stan refused to say anything. It looked like that urge to tell stories (instead of lies) hadn’t left Stan after all.

He dropped down and padded around the desk chair so he could get a better look at other pages. Ford didn’t dare touch them, but he wanted to read the start of the dialogue, maybe find out why the two characters were arguing. Propping himself back on his hind legs, he read the page, finding himself engrossed in what was going on. He really wanted to read this from the beginning, typos and all.

A low scrabbling sound caught his attention, his ears pivoting as the sound grew louder. Stanley was back! Dropping to the floor, Ford trotted briskly out of the office and sat himself in the kitchen to wait. After discovering Abby was being bullied, Ford wanted to make sure she was okay. His tail started wagging the moment the car door slammed. Seconds later Stan unlocked and opened the door, Abby chattering happily behind him.

“Sabrina says we need to get him a doghouse,” Abby said, slipping her backpack off. “Chocolate Chip!” She dropped the pack and rushed over. Ford braced for impact, even as his tail thumped harder. 

“He’s informed me his name is Six,” Stan said, giving Ford a small nod.

“Really? He can talk! He can talk!” Abby threw her arms around him.

“Honey, don’t hug him, he might not like it,” Stan warned.

Ford gave his niece a lick. His tail would not stop. He’d lost complete control of it. Stan eyed the situation warily to make sure Ford didn’t try to bite her. Ford licked Abby a second time to prove he was fine with his chest being crushed. Abby laughed.

“He likes hugs,” she stated. “Is he magic? Like in the stories?”

Picking her backpack up off the floor, Stan shook his head at her. “No. He didn’t say his name. Just kept pawing me with his big ol’ six toed paws and when I called him ‘Six’, he responded.”

“Aw…, but I wanted him to be a talking dog.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.”

“Can we still get a dog house?”

“We’ll discuss it later. When we’re sure we’re keeping him.”

“We’re keeping him,” Abby said, finally letting go. “Finders, keepers.”

Stan gave them both a stern look, but Ford could see that it was mostly for show. Whether Stan liked it or not, Ford was here to stay, at least for now.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! This chapter was like wrestling a couple of krakens at once. I'd like to have a word with the universe for its decision to throw my lovely editor, Ariel_Tempest, and I under a bus, then running over us with a train for good measure for the last few months. We're both still alive and kicking, if barely. *shakes fist at 2020*

Stan had a dog, there was no denying it. Unless someone came out of the woodwork, Six was theirs. Abby was delighted.

It’d already been a week and things were settling into a new routine around the house. Dr. Lofting recommended feeding Six three times a day. It was easy for Stan to feed him before he and Abby ate. (The dog waited until they sat down to eat, which was weirdly polite.) Unfortunately, Abby kept sneaking him food from her plate at dinner. Stan had put her in time out twice so far for doing it. It encouraged begging, which was a big no-no. He hoped the novelty would wear off soon.

The night of Six’s arrival, Stan ended up being ten minutes late to work due to everything. The station director hadn’t been happy, but understood after Stan explained what happened. He told Rufus and the rest of the night crew too, which, of course, meant the day crew found out. When Stan went into work the next night, he’d been bombarded with questions. Had the dog survived? Did he find the owner? Was he keeping it? They were overly enthusiastic, offering advice even after Stan told them he didn’t know if he was keeping Six.

When Stan came in the following Monday, his desk was covered in hand written letters and dog training books. The letters were full of contradicting advice, though the books might have been useful if he was starting with a puppy. Six seemed well trained already or he was at least smart enough to realize what would get him pitched out to spend the night in a cold barn. Stan was increasingly certain it was the latter.

Thankfully, the unsolicited advice stopped by Wednesday, but Stan wished it hadn’t. It was preferable to the tension that dampened the normally jovial atmosphere.

The station was being sold. 

Mr. Foley had started the station in the 1920s. There were all sorts of tales surrounding him: he’d run a speakeasy in radio station’s basement; he’d slipped coded messages to bootleggers in the Children's Story Hour scripts his wife read on air; he’d told some Chicago mobster to take a hike and lived; then told FBI agents to do the same thirty years later when he’d turned his barn into a dance hall, because why not? (Hoover was ruining everyone’s fun, including his son’s and his son’s boyfriend’s.) He was a legend around town and well loved by his employees. 

“I really thought he’d be running this place until he died,” Rufus said as he and Stan sat in the old speakeasy turned employee lounge. 

The bar still stood, but there were only the finest non-alcoholic drinks behind it now. No drinking on the job. (“Can’’t have some lush tip off the feds,” Old Man Foley said.) The tables and chairs had been replaced over the years, some nicer than others, and a sofa had been lugged down about eight years ago. Stan liked the chairs. They were comfortable, unlike his desk chair upstairs. If there was a way he could haul his typewriter down without the day crew getting burrs up their shorts about it, he would. Rufus felt the same, but was too proper to give in to such urges. Even after years of friendship, Stan had only made small dents in Rufus’ proclivity to uphold social appearances.

Last Halloween’s haunted cabin adventure had done a lot to loosen the man up. Stan couldn’t help smiling at that.

“We were all taking bets.” Stan said, frowning slightly. “Thought he’d keel over from a heartattack and Kim would prop him up at his desk until the end of the day. There goes my twenty-five in the pool.” 

Rufus nodded. Both men sat, a small table between them and mugs of hot cider in their hands. 

“I had thirty on going in his sleep on the couch down here.”

“Ooo, I almost put money on that.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“The idea of Kim shoving a pen in his hand and not bothering to tell anyone because she’s got ‘too much damn work to do’ until five was comedy gold.” He grinned and took a drink. “Still,” he continued, his mood turning somber. “It’s going to be hard when he finally sells. I mean, Foley gave me a real start in the business. I was surprised he hired me for mic work since I’d only done it at Quentin.

“It’s got me worried that whoever gets this place will take one look at my resume and kick me down the ladder to gopher or something. I did that in Eugene, handing breaking news to the broadcasters, getting yelled at if the reports were conflicting. It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t take the calls or listen to the police scanner. I was just the errand boy.”

“I hear you,” Rufus replied. He lifted his gaze to the partially painted fresco on the ceiling. It’d never been completed for some reason. “I interviewed with a couple stations in Portland. They weren’t interested in my degree only that I was a warm body to help shuffle newsroom work or give the late night or early morning shifts too. I know everyone starts out at the bottom, but I was hoping my degree would give me a bit of a boost. Staying and working for Old Man Foley was just the better choice.”

“Which I appreciate, my dear wonderful friend.” Stan raised his mug in salute. 

“Cheers.” Rufus clinked his mug against Stan’s.

They drank quietly for a moment before Rufus let out a loud groan, covering half his face with his free hand and slowly sliding it down. “God, I hope he doesn’t sell to some California group or worse, back East firm. Can you imagine the stifling atmosphere they’d bring? You can kiss Nick Nightly’s UFO witnessing, Big Foot spotting, cryptid dating listeners good-bye. You’d be forced to take love song requests after Bedtime Stories or worse, cut that out too and have nothing but love sick fools. It gets so old.”

“Heh, love sick fools… Speaking of, I wonder if that lady’s going to call back. I want to know if she chose the werewolf or the vampire.”

“Same.” Rufus took another sip and leaned back in the chair. “On the topic of weird canines, how’s your dog?”

“I caught him reading the newspaper this morning,” Stan replied. At Rufus’ inquisitive look, he decided to tease him a little. Draw out the anticipation for the story. He took a long drink of his cider, waiting to see if Rufus would take the bait.

“Stan…” The invitation was there, but Stan wasn’t biting yet.

“Stanley.”

Stan kept drinking.

Rufus had been a skeptic. When the weirdness started taking over their original call-in program, he’d actively tried to discourage it. Stan thought it was fun and encouraged his callers instead. They’d been at odds over it for months, but eventually Rufus admitted it made things lively and Stan was good with keeping the worst of them from ranting too long. He’d laughed a little, called their theories and sightings far-fetched, and tried to prove them false through logic. That was before last Halloween. Before his cousin offered his cabin for them to do a special broadcast from. A reportedly haunted cabin.

Oh, it was haunted. Very haunted.

The look of barely contained terror on Rufus’ face when the ghost started singing _She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain_ was something Stan would never forget. The ghost was friendly, but annoying in the way a four-year-old is when they’ve discovered something new and won’t stop talking about it for days.

“Stanley Pines,” Rufus said in a scolding tone.

“That’s my name.” Stan smiled innocently, earning him an exasperated growl. “Fine, fine. Came downstairs and found him sprawled in front of the newspaper. I could’ve sworn it’d been on the coffee table. Went into my office, but left the door ajar so I could keep an eye on him. For a bit he did nothing, kept licking his paws and shuffling around. I started typing and, I kid you not, a minute later I caught him flipping to the word search and circling words with a crayon. Didn’t know it was the word search at the time. I found that out afterwards when I picked the paper off the floor and found the thing completed. He spent half an hour at it.”

“That dog is possessed or an escaped experiment.”

“My money’s on a fairy beast.” 

“Shall we start a pool?” Rufus asked casually.

“Nah, it’s no fun if it’s just us and I’m not letting anyone else know about this. They’d just give me more advice.”

“Heaven forbid, people try to give you more advice.” 

“Your sarcasm is noted and appreciated.” Stan finished off his hot cider and stood. “Time to get back to work. I’ve got a bunch of kids to read to.”

Rufus quickly downed the rest of his and they took their empty mugs upstairs. 

“I’ll take that,” Rufus said, swiping Stan’s mug from his hand. “And meet you in the booth. Ice or no ice?”

“Thanks. No ice.”

They’d been downstairs longer than Stan had thought, leaving him only fifteen minutes to get himself ready for tonight’s show. Pulling a copy of Roald Dahl’s _Fantastic Mr. Fox_ from his briefcase, he paused to smile at the photographs he kept strapped to the inside of the lid. There was one of Carla holding Abby when she was only a year old, Abby’s school picture from this year, and an old hand colored one of him and Ford as children in their room drawing treasure maps. Ma had sent it to him after Abby was born.

Sometimes he wondered why he kept it with the other two, but Carla’s was just as bittersweet to look at. So it stayed put.

Last Halloween had been the closest he’d physically been to Ford in years. Rufus’ cousin’s cabin was just outside Gravity Falls. He’d almost called Ford before heading over, thinking maybe he’d try and just...he didn’t know, say hi? Say he was in town to do a radio show from a haunted cabin and ask if he’d like to join him? It’d sounded silly and pathetic in his head and, per usual, Stan chickened out since the answer was obvious. He didn’t hate Ford, but it hurt to be continuously shunned by his twin. 

He shook the heavy thoughts from his mind and grabbed the book. Abby was going to love it. It had animals and crazy hijinks, what more could she want? He took a few minutes to read the opening paragraphs; picking out the cadence he’d practiced earlier as he spoke. 

“You’ve got seven minutes Stan,” Irene called as she walked past, her clipboard in hand. He didn’t know what the bookkeeper was still doing here.

“I hear you. What’re you still milling around for? Don’t you have a date tonight?”

“No. The jerk cancelled. Second time this week. I’m done, figured I could catch up on filing instead. Unless you’re offering?”

“How can we go on a date when I have a show to do?” he replied, slipping out the door into the hallway. 

“Tease!”

“Can’t let the kiddos down!”

It was a short walk to the booth. Rufus gave him a thumbs up from his seat at the soundboard next to Tony, who gave him a two fingered salute. The sound engineer was a decent sort, friendly, but no Greg. He, Rufus, and Greg had been a good team. It made Stan nostalgic for his college days.

“She’s all yours,” Mike said, high-fiving him as he left the booth.

“Thanks man,” he replied as the other DJ said his good nights to Rufus and Tony.

The trade off ritual complete, Stan settled in, making adjustments to the mic and headphones. Once everything was as he liked it, Rufus quickly handed him the mug of water Stan had forgotten to grab then skedaddled out of the booth. Stan nodded that he was ready any time and his producer began the countdown on his fingers.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

“Good evening everyone, it’s eight o’clock and you know what that means. Bedtime stories with Nick Nightly! So, bundle all your youngins up and tuck them in tight. Tonight we’ll be starting a new book, one I’ve gotten a few requests for.”

*

Hazel presented Stan with a stack of pictures when he got home that evening. 

“Abby spent all evening working on this,” she said. 

Stan leafed through them, smiling as he recognized the pirate captain with her magic cape and sword. Abby drew the character a lot. “Heh, she’s decided to draw another Pirate Abby Adventure. She’s getting better at drawing animals.” Stan continued flipping through them. 

“Did you notice the bad guy?”

He studied the pages, paying particular attention to the villain trying to steal Pirate Abby’s ship. He had a familiar red shirt with a yellow lightning bolt, one that a certain Chase Peltzer wore all the time.

“Has Chase been bothering her again?” Hazel asked. “She hasn’t said anything. Mostly it’s been Six this and Six that for the last week.”

“The teacher separated them. I double checked on Tuesday. Spooked Miss Contrite with the phone call.” Stan couldn’t help a small self-satisfactory grin. “‘That doesn’t mean he’s actually stopped bullying, but he hasn’t touched her again.” 

Setting the drawings on the kitchen table, he ran a hand through his hair. “I wish I could move her to a different class, but the school’s full. Another student would have to switch with her. The parents would have to agree, but it’s so late in the school year already.”

Reaching out, Hazel gently touched his arm. “You’re doing what you can. If it gets worse-”

“If it gets worse, I’ll take it up with Henry and we’ll force the school district’s hand on their classroom size restrictions. We never had this nonsense when I was in school. Crowded us in like sardines.”

She gave him a small squeeze then let go. Ducking back into the living room, she gathered her things and headed toward the door.

“For what it’s worth, you’re doing a good job. She’s creative and bright. I love babysitting her. Her stories are so imaginative.” She gave Stan a sly look. “Wonder where she gets it from?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” he answered smugly.

“Have you gotten any farther in your book?” she asked. “It’s been a while since you’ve mentioned it.”

“I had to rewrite the last two chapters. They sounded pretty rough.” Glancing over at Abby’s drawings, he thought about his efforts long ago at writing and drawing comics. His ambitions had been dashed then. Now was another story. “I was thinking of adding a few illustrations. I haven’t really drawn in ages, but it feels like it should have some illustrations, you know.”

“I think that would fit. You’ll let me read what you have, won’t you?”

He shrugged. “If you really want to.”

“I do. What I read before was charming.” Putting on her coat, Hazel patted him on the arm and let herself out.

Stan watched her car pull out from the kitchen door then took a quick turn around the bottom floor. Peanut and Jelly were pouncing on each other in the family room, racing up and over the furniture, but Six was nowhere in sight. That wasn’t unusual. He walked to the bathroom, pulling the door open wider than it’d been. Six was fast asleep on the bath mat, sheets of paper under his paws. Wiggly lines covered the papers -Six’s attempts at letters and shapes. They were better than the ones Stan had been finding in the kitchen trash. The dog’s writing was improving.

“Yeah...fairy beast,” Stan whispered, turning back to the kitchen to feed the cats. “Definitely fae related.”

*

Ford couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so comfortable. Sleep and meals weren’t something he avoided or remembered as an afterthought anymore. His thoughts weren’t consumed by his increasingly desperate plans to defeat Bill, which helped. He was in limbo and slowly slipping into contentment. Which he shouldn’t be. Bill was still out there and the Portal was still whole and sitting in his lab. They were all in danger, but it didn’t feel as imminent as it had.

He lounged on the living room carpet, half asleep, listening to Stan type in his office. It’d been nearly three weeks since he’d been rescued and Ford found himself easily slipping into his brother’s routine. When Stan wasn’t out feeding the Dunst’s farm animals (which Ford joined him in just to get out of the house), he was doing domestic things like laundry, meal preparation, and general cleaning or he was in his office. It was so mundane, but foreign at the same time watching his twin do these things.

Rolling onto his side, his eyes fell on today’s crayon of choice: grey. Abby didn’t use it often, so he figured it’d be okay if he practiced writing with it. The letters were still wobbly and jagged, but they were nearly legible. Maybe with another week of penmanship drills he’d be ready to tell Stan everything. He hoped.

There was so much to tell, but Ford wasn’t sure where to start. Obviously he needed Stan to know about his curse and the clue of how to break it. After that, it became a question of whether or not he should say anything about Bill. The rational part of his brain told him that he should. Stanley needed the information in order to help him later. The more emotional, (terrified and ashamed) part of him didn’t want Stan to know how gullible and stupid he’d been. Sometimes he wondered if staying a dog might be the better solution. Look at what happened when he was human! But that was just escaping his problems and he couldn’t in good conscience do that. Even if it meant finally confronting Stan about the West Coast Tech scholarship fiasco.

_Ugh, no. Now’s not the time to think of that._

The heater kicked on again, churning warm air into the cooling house. Ford closed his eyes, stretched comfortably, and let his mind wander to other, less stressful things. It was a luxury. 

It was Wednesday. He hoped Abby was having fun at school and Chase was behaving himself. (Why wouldn’t Stan let him go with her to make sure?) What did children do in first grade these days? Had it changed much since he was a child? Probably. His jaw hurt. He definitely needed to rest it this evening, which meant he could spend more time with her. She was such an imaginative child. All the crazy stories she came up with. She’d run all over the house pretending each room was someplace exciting: a new planet for her astronaut, a new island for her pirate queen, a new fairy land for her magician princess. Sometimes she convinced him to play with her, tying a bandana around his neck and making him her first mate. He didn’t mind. Ford sometimes wondered, if he were human, would he be too embarrassed to play with her? Stan didn’t seem to be.

The other night she’d wanted to play _Candyland_ , but Hazel vetoed it, and instead they’d played _Sorry_. They’d included Ford, though Abby drew cards and moved his piece around the board. He’d enjoyed himself despite not actually playing. It was nice to just be included.

Maybe he’d introduce her to _Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons_ when he was human again. Maybe Stan would want to play too. He just needed to...

_And I’m back to thinking about curse breaking and talking to Stan and…_

Guilt nudged its way back to the forefront of his mind and, while he tried, he couldn’t shove it aside like he used to. There was no way he could with Stan only a room away. The question of why his twin never contacted him wouldn’t leave him alone. Sure, it’d sit silently in the corner of his mind while he was busy relearning to write, only to slink out and poke him in the side the moment he was unoccupied. He thought he’d figured it out, Stanley had decided Ford wasn’t worth the effort.

Ford always knew Stan would find his way in this world. He was Stanley Pines. Charisma oozed from him as easily as sweat on a summer’s day. He had the people skills Ford, as a child, wished he’d had. The effortless way Stan could deflect and redirect the hurtful words from their bullies was impressive. Nothing affected him. But, that couldn’t be true. Filbricks’ words affected him. Ford remembered two little boys hiding in a cave, the younger asking the older why their father was never proud of him. They’d been ten and he clearly remembered Stan’s heartbroken voice. Ford was the smart one; Stan was the tough one. Still, for a smart person Ford had done some incredibly dumb things.

Believing Bill was a muse and devoting so much time and attention to him was clearly stupid. He’d worshiped a false idol. Fiddleford tried to warn him, tried to get him to stop. The research they’d done could be published, they didn’t have to go through with the practical test of the Portal. They really needed more help, more funding. Who knew what was on the other side? It could be dangerous! Ford dismissed each of those arguments or found a work around. They didn’t need others, they worked best together. Fiddleford was a genius like him, they could build a containment unit for any creature. (Not that either of them had extensive knowledge in things like, say biology or epidemiology to actually prevent contagions from getting out into the world.) He’d been a fool. He could see that now.

He’d been a lousy friend.

He was a lousy sibling too.

Their mother had tried for years to get him and Stan to speak to each other. Caryn wouldn’t quit. She’d used every trick in her handbook; casual name dropping, guilt trips, and down right pleading. Ford had ignored it all and apparently so had Stan. Why else would his twin have not contacted him about his family? Unless their mother was holding each other’s contact information hostage until they agreed to talk to each other. Maybe, but not likely. He didn’t remember her giving him Stan’s phone number, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t tried. More than likely she’d tried and he’d told her he didn’t want to hear about Stan. 

_Shit._

That didn’t explain Stan’s end of things unless he didn’t care… Shuddering, a horrid image of himself possessed by Bill answering Stan’s first telephone call to him in years popped into his head. Bill being completely disinterested in the fact Stan had lost his wife. Bill saying cruel things to him. Dredging up every negative thing about Stan Ford had told him and unleashing it in that manic, condescending tone he had. Ford wanted to retch.

 _Please let that be my imagination. Oh God, did Bill do that to Shermie?_

Ford didn’t remember telling Shermie he wasn’t coming down to California for Thanksgiving, but Shermie had mentioned it when he’d called the Monday before, pleading for him to come. He’d told him that he was in the final stages of a very important project. The barely controlled anger in his older brother’s voice as he accepted Ford’s dismissal stung. At the time Bill had consoled him and Ford had agreed with the demon’s point that Shermie simply didn’t see the bigger picture. That he could make up for all this when they were done. And he’d bought it; hook, line, and sinker. 

_I’m glad I didn’t go, Bill might have hurt someone, he thought. Jacob, Levi, the twins-_

The twins: Mabel and Mason. Ford loved his nephews and niece, but Mabel and Mason reminded him so much of him and Stanley, it hurt to look at them sometimes. (Their brown hair, their brown eyes, their hand holding, their babbling excitement that was so reminiscent of him and Stanley once upon a time.) That was the reason he’d avoided so many family functions. Shermie was upset at Ford’s refusal, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d missed the last two Thanksgivings with them.

Had Bill done that on purpose?

Ford couldn’t remember all the times he’d been possessed. How many people had he spoken to while Bill was in charge? What had Bill done to them?

Why had he agreed to share his body with Bill?

Why hadn’t he seen the danger?

_All I wanted was someone who understood me. Someone to see how wonderful I am._

_To see my potential._

_To care about me._

_But who would want to be around me?_

“Meow?”

Uncurling enough to lift his head, Ford saw the cats had come downstairs. Jelly, the grey polydactyl tabby, stood next to Peanut, her orange tabby brother. They stared at him, their tails twitching and noses sniffing. Ritual threat level assessment in progress; Ford waited for their verdict. It came swiftly. Peanut walked past and hopped up on the loveseat behind him. Jelly, seeing her brother approve of the interloper, ran past and jumped up next to him. They proceeded to groom each other, ignoring Ford completely.

With a heavy sigh, he laid his head back down and tried to recite Pi in his head to calm down. When that didn’t work, he tried the periodic table.

He gave up when the telephone rang.

Throwing open the door on the second ring, Stan jogged past him and grabbed the phone from where it hung on the wall.

“Hello? Oh, hey Ma.”

Their mother? Ford climbed to his feet and trotted into the kitchen. They’d barely spoken more than a few sentences when she’d called before New Year’s. Ford could still hear her voice breaking with frustration and disappointment as she told him he was risking his health and possibly his life on his project. She had no idea how right she was.

“What?” Stan asked, surprised. Ford scooted closer, sitting near Stan’s feet, hoping his canine hearing could pick up Caryn’s part of the conversation. “Ma, what’re you worrying for? He’s gone without talking to you for months before.”

Ford had a feeling they were discussing him.

“Have you asked Shermie?”

Her voice from the receiver was barely audible. Stan shifted from one foot to the other, rolled his eyes once, and, after another minute, rubbed his face tiredly with his free hand. Beside him, Ford sat on pins and needles waiting for him to speak and hopefully clarify the frantic noise he was hearing.

“Okay, okay. Calm down. Let me see if I have this straight,” Stan said finally. “Neither you nor Shermie have heard from him since December. Both of you have tried calling off and on for the last two weeks and got nothing. You called again this morning and got a message that his phone service had been disconnected.” He waited for an affirmative.

Ford’s heart clenched.

“And now you want me to drive up and check on him.”

Another affirmative.

Stan sighed heavily. “I can’t do it tonight. Abby’ll be home in an hour and I have work….I’ve told you, this isn’t some job I can just skip out on without a huge justification! Ford deciding his projects are more important than giving you five minutes on the phone isn’t enough and, really, you should’ve expected this by now. I don’t know why you think he’s going to change. From what you’ve said before... What? You complain about it every other time we talk!

“Look, he doesn't give a shit about this family. We’re too beneath his Royal Science-ness... I have my reasons, and you damn well know them, for not contacting Shermie. Ford’s made his choice. He made his choice about me years ago. I ain’t worth a lick of his time and now you’re not either. Welcome to the club. ”

Stan turned, clutching the edge of the counter until his knuckles of his free hand turned white. He looked as if he would crack the countertop. Ford stared, frozen in shock and sudden despair. Stan thought he only cared for science. That isn’t true, he wanted to shout, but an insidious voice piped up.

_What else is he supposed to think? You didn’t even let Ma give you his phone number. You’ve both been in Oregon how long?_

“No, I will not contact Shermie now,” Stan growled. Ford had missed something. “I still have a warrant out for me in South Carolina and I sure as Hell am not going to jail because Shermie, ex-military policeman Shermie, decided to tell them where to find me because it’s the ‘right thing to do’. I did the crime, I should do the time. I’m not losing my kid over something stupid I did when I was eighteen ‘cause, you know, I was hungry and homeless!”

 _Oh_ , Ford thought. _Shermie didn’t know either. Wait. Homeless?_

“Yes he would Ma! We’ve been over this. Sure, I didn’t use my real name, but I’ve got a year before the statute of limitations runs out and I’m not chancing it!”

Ford jerked as Stan shouted. Their mother was talking again and all Ford wanted to do was hide. He didn’t want to see Stan react like this; he didn’t want to listen to what his family really thought of him or hear that Stan had been homeless. His brother had had to stoop to criminal activity to survive. The notion tore at him even though for years he’d assumed just that. Filbrick always said Stan couldn’t do anything without stealing or cheating his way there and Ford had clung to that in that fleeting moment he’d thought about contacting Stan again. God, he was as bad as Stan. Worse really. At least Stan didn’t think he was a criminal, just an asshole.

The funny thing was, Ford didn’t have room to judge considering he and Fiddleford needed nuclear waste as the Portal’s fuel source. Obtaining it had taken a hefty bribe and forking over the patent to one of Ford’s less ethical inventions to the right people to obtain. 

“Abby’s my life. You understand that, right?” Stan pleaded. “If something were to happen to me...She already lost one parent. Me getting locked up would crush her. Things have finally gotten close to normal again. Losing me, even short term, would mess her up again. Badly. I don’t trust Shermie. Not since I was fifteen and he marched me into Pops’ office with that pack of cigarettes I’d lifted. He’d lifted stuff plenty of times before boot camp. Who do you think taught me? Damn hypocrite. The military may have done some good for him, but they also put a giant steel bar up his ass.”

Ford remembered that. Filbrick had made a big deal, hollering and ranting about how ‘no son of mine stole’ and ‘how Stanley was ruining the family’s reputation’. It’d carried all the way to their bedroom, two stories above. Stan was grounded for two months and was only released to attend Shermie and Ruth’s wedding. He also remembered a teenage Shermie slipping them into the movie theater through the side doors to avoid paying for more than one ticket as children. He supposed Stan had a right to be untrusting.

“Look, I’ll drive up on Saturday,” Stan said, sounding resigned. “I’ll find a babysitter for Abby. I’d rather her not be around if Ford decides to scream at me. She doesn’t need that...Ma, I’m not using my daughter as leverage to get him to talk to me! She’s not a prop! You know what, I’m done. I’ll check Saturday, but that’s it.”

He slammed the receiver back on the cradle with a snarl. 

Ford jumped, letting out an involuntary yelp. Stan’s eyes flicked to him, his face hard, making Ford instinctively want to back away.

“I can’t believe her!” Stan yelled, gripping the counter with both hands. “I can’t-” He let out a frustrated growl and wheeled around, leaning his back heavily against the counter. His gaze dropped to Ford. “How could she even suggest that? Abby’s not some fuckin’ olive branch! Just because she and Ford share the same hands doesn’t mean he’s going to go gaga over her and suddenly, whoosh! A decade’s worth of not giving a fuck about me just goes away! I’m so glad Carla isn’t here. She’d be booking the first flight back to Glass Shard Beach and letting Ma have it, then burn the place down for good measure!”

He stomped across the kitchen, grabbing his coat off the hanger on the way out. Shocked, Ford made a split second decision and hurried outside before Stan slammed the door shut. He nearly got his tail caught, but made it just in time. Stan grunted something that might have been ‘watch it’ as he stormed down the walk to the yard.

The snow lay across the fields in a soft white blanket. Stan trudged through a gate into the nearest one, closing it behind him, leaving Ford on the other side. Luckily, the fence was strung loosely with bar wire, making it easier to bend out of his way and slip through. All he had to do was watch out for the barbs. With a quick wriggle under the lowest line, he was hot on his twin’s heels.

A small copse of trees lay not far from the farmhouse and Stan made a beeline to it. He was seething. Ford couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him this mad. They walked along until they reached the trees. He paused, sniffing. The scent of pine and small animals hit him and he couldn’t resist taking a few minutes to explore them while Stan paced in a circle around a large stump with an oddly perfectly flat top near the middle of the grove. Surrounding it were sections of fallen trees, cut and moved to form a circle of seating around the stump. For a good while there was nothing but snow, smells, and low, angry muttering from Stan. Eventually his twin stopped and brushed the snow off one log, except, to Ford’s surprise, it was an actual bench carved from the wood. Stan plopped himself down unceremoniously, leaning forward, arms resting on his legs. 

Abandoning the interesting smells he’d been trying to identify, Ford walked over and, after a moment’s hesitation, rested his head against Stan’s knee. He wasn’t sure the contact was welcome, but he didn’t know what else to do.

Absently Stan began petting him. 

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he said at last. “My brother hasn’t been answering his phone. Ma and Shermie, my other brother, are worried. I guess a part of me is too, but Ford can take care of himself. He doesn’t need me. He hasn’t since we were teens. Of the two of us, he was the smart twin.” He gave a short humorless laugh. “Anyway, he’s a big shot scientist now. I knew he could do it even after…

“You see, I messed up his chance at a scholarship to a really good university. It wasn’t intentional, I just didn’t want to be left behind, you know?” He grew quiet and Ford didn’t know if he would continue. Then Stan sighed, a low, tired, shaking sound.

“I knew it was going to happen someday, but I thought...I thought we’d at least leave home together,” he said. “Maybe tour the states. Maybe rent a boat and do a little sailing. Anything to just see what was out there and find a better place than Glass Shard Beach. And, yeah, it’s as bad as the name suggests. I just wanted to find somewhere we both fit in and once we did, Ford could nerd away to his heart’s content and get a Nobel Prize for all the crazy wonderful stuff he’d invent or discover. But I messed that up. I couldn’t let the dream go, even though he had. At least I didn’t ruin his life completely. He got a full ride scholarship to another school.”

Oh, so Stan knew about Backupsmore. The news wasn’t shocking, but it meant Stan had more of an idea about Ford’s life than he’d thought. 

“Our father threw me out for costing him the first scholarship. I was seventeen. It was awful, but I should’ve expected it. I’m the family screw up after all. I lived out of my car. No one would hire me because I didn’t have an address. I did things to survive that I’m not proud of. I might’ve died out there, just another body on the streets, if it weren’t for Carla.”

The familiar sensation of ice cold realization poured through Ford’s veins. He’d never considered the possibility of Stan dying on the streets. Him landing on his feet and laughing defiantly in their faces, that was what he’d imagined and clung to all these years. It was a petty notion.

Shuffling closer, Ford whined and thumped his tail in the snow. There was no going back to fix the past, but he could try to make amends, starting by listening to Stan and paying attention, even if what he said hurt.

Stan smiled and ruffled Ford’s ears, the light catching the glassy look in his eyes. He blinked a couple times, but a few tears still escaped.

“She hated him,” he said quietly, his voice thick. “Carla hated Ford, Pops, pretty much the rest of my family. Except Ma. She tried to bring me home and smooth things over right after it happened, but she couldn’t. I suspect Pops was going to throw me out when I turned eighteen anyway.” Removing his glasses, he wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “My in-laws, especially after I told them the whole story, were practically on the warpath. John already has a long standing grudge against Pops, this just reinforced it. John’s my father-in-law. He’s a great guy, once he decides he likes you that is. So’s his wife, Claire.

“Anyway, Carla... Yeah, she was indifferent to Ford when we were dating in high school, but after I got kicked out, she said he changed. Started acting like he was some know-it-all snob and everyone else wasn’t worth a lick of his time. Just because he’d had a chance at West Coast Tech. Apparently he said some harsh stuff about me, which I deserved, but she never thought I did.”

He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. Ford waited for him to continue, his mind latching belatedly on the fact that Stan and Carla had dated in high school. The only Carla he could remember was Carla McCorkle. Crap. He didn’t have time to process this.

“We haven’t spoken since. He’s pretty much written me off as worthless, and while I can’t blame him...I’m not going to lie, it hurts. He’s my twin. There was always this hope that I could make it up to him, but I don’t have the millions he would’ve made graduating from West Coast Tech and I’m not giving him money that goes to feed my daughter.”

Glancing down, Stan gave him a sad look. “So now you know. At least when I see him on Saturday and I can finally say ‘I’m sorry’ to his face. I just hope he doesn’t throw a punch at me.”

Ford’s throat tightened. He wanted to speak, to tell Stan he was sorry too, but he couldn’t. He was a dog and Stan wasn’t wholly wrong about him. Before this, Ford had wanted Stan to perform an act of penance, to prove that he was sorry and that he had matured. Even as he shoved Stan’s memory aside to focus on his studies, he’d told himself that if Stanley ever came to him and could prove himself, he’d accept the apology and move on. This penance changed as he got further in his studies and eventually moved to Gravity Falls. First it’d been getting Ford admitted to West Coast Tech. Then it’d been being his lab lackey, doing whatever physical thing needed to be done to make the experiment run smoothly. In Gravity Falls, he’d wanted Stan to do menial tasks, like cleaning house or doing the grocery shopping. Now as he sat letting Stan rub his ears and watch him sniff in the cool afternoon, he realized how arrogant and petty he’d been.

Stan had thoughts and feelings too and somewhere along the way he’d forgotten that. 

“I’ll bring you with me. I could use the backup in case it all goes south. He used to box, same as me, and although I still work out a little, I’m not in the shape I was in high school. Better safe than sorry.” He gave Ford one last pat and then gently pushed him off. Standing, Stan stretched. “More than likely he’s gotten himself wrapped up in a project. Ford used to do that, bury his head into a book until something new caught his attention. Plus, with the winter we’ve been having, a tree could’ve taken out the phone lines, which could explain the message Ma got. Or he forgot to pay the phone bill. That’s fairly likely if he’s buried his nose in his work since December.”

He started back to the house with Ford trotting along beside him. 

“It’s funny. I was near Ford’s place this past Halloween for work. Live show from a haunted cabin. As a kid, he would’ve loved it,” Stan chuckled, a smile crossing his face. A second later it was gone along with any hint of laughter. “I almost called him, but chickened out. It’s not the first time. Besides, he wouldn’t want to come on some radio show with his dumb twin.” 

_No, no, I would have..._ Except Stan was right. He would’ve blown him off, even with the promise of a haunted cabin. He and Fiddleford had been nearly finished with the Portal. The fact Stan had his phone number, knew where he was, and still hadn’t felt confident to speak to him, made the shame worse. Stanley really thought he never wanted to hear from him.

Could Ford really say he hadn’t thought that in his most bitter moments?

His head seemed fit to burst with questions as a child. Always wanting to know how and why the universe worked the way it did. (Why he’d been born a freak.) He couldn’t remember if Stan ever had that curiosity too. He’d always been willing to go along with whatever Ford came up with, just as Ford had been willing to do the same with Stan’s schemes. Gradually it’d changed.

Gradually Ford began resenting his twin.

For what? His continual defense of him against bullies? That was good, even if it left Stan in detention more often than not. His copying Ford’s school work? Yes, that was bad. Stan refused to wear glasses, stating he didn’t need them and anything he didn’t understand, Ford could explain. (Why didn’t Stan really want to wear his glasses? When was the last time their parents had even gotten him glasses?) His seemingly inability to take responsibility for his actions? That one was definitely up there. But, really, they were seventeen, and…

And Stan wasn’t ready to grow up.

He’d said so himself.

Stan trekked across the field, approaching the gate while Ford plodded slowly behind.

This wasn’t getting him anywhere. It only raised more questions and tore at him. His twin shouldn’t think he would be rejected out right. He should be able to call him. So why hadn’t Ford done it either? Ma must have given him Stan’s number.

His earlier recollection that he’d wanted Stan to atone by doing menial and hard labor, like he was a prisoner, kicked him in the stomach again. That was no way to treat someone. Especially since, in the long run, it hadn’t hurt, but lit a fire in him. If he’d gone to West Coast Tech. would he have finished his PhD early? Would he have come to Gravity Falls at all? Even if it’d gone to Hell, his early years there were filled with excitement and wonder. 

He wasn’t sure. 

_Of the two of us, he was the smart twin._

_I’m the family screw up after all._

Stan’s words circled back, smacking him upside the head. His throat tightened as the words sunk in and settled with his observations and memories. People always called Ford smart, but what’d they call Stan? Reckless. Trouble. Liar. Loser. Suffocating. Heard over and over those things had to have hurt Stan. Then their father kicked him out and Ford refused to see or hear anything of him. Not when he’d married. Not when he’d had a child. Not when his wife died. 

_I lived out of my car._

His brother had been homeless and Ford sat safe in his dorm room irritated he couldn’t ditch his English requirements. He could imagine Stan cold and shivering, people passing by on the street, calling him dirty and lazy, or flat out ignoring his presence. As if he were invisible. He’d probably had to steal to eat. Maybe someone would hire him for a day’s labor and pay him under the table, but it wasn’t sustainable. 

What had it done to him physically? Mentally?

Stan had lost everything that day. Ford had had a setback. It didn’t equate. It shouldn’t have happened. He could argue that Stan’s life turned out okay, but his brother made it clear it was only because of Carla. (Oh, wow. He owed Carla McCorkle for who Stan was now. That was hard to fathom.)

She’d love him. Did Ford? Yes, but it was buried under so much resentment.

He’d resented his twin.

His twin who’d encouraged him in everything he did, even if he teased him. His twin who’d stood by him for years. His twin who’d given him his glasses when Crampelter broke Ford’s, repeatedly. Stanley gave so much and asked little in return: a High Six, help with schoolwork, (which Ford should’ve done a better job at instead of being annoyed and letting him copy), and to support him too. What had Ford done? Shunned him when he needed him the most.

_I really am the family screw up after all._

He’d been a kid. A kid drifting along, not ready for adulthood. Life may have not been perfect, but he had a dream and his brother, what else did he need at the time? As he thought, Ford could see the cracks in Stan’s mask. The uncertainty, the forced laugh or smile, the pain at never being considered worth anything by a callous father. A burden to his brother who was so brilliant. Then to have his worst fears confirmed. Stan had known Ford was bound for greater things and that he’d be left behind. That he was the afterthought in everyone’s mind.

Why had Stan stopped drawing comics? Why had Stan stopped writing stories? Why had Stan stopped trying in school? Why had he given Ford his glasses?

_I’m the family screw up…_

_You’re not._

_I’ve been so blind._

Stan opened the gate and waited for him. Once he was through, he shut it and they continued back across the yard to the house. 

He should’ve realized the fall out from their fight and subsequent disowning would leave Stan unsure; he didn’t want to be hurt again. Carla’s hatred probably influenced Stan too. The more Ford thought about it, the more he realized how alike they were; shielding themselves from being rejected again. But Stan still cared. He wouldn’t be so emotional over the phone call if he didn’t.

What would Stan think when he got to the house on Saturday and found it empty? Would he call the police? Would he think Ford was dead? Would he search the house from top to bottom and find the secret door to the lab? The answer was probably yes to the last one. This was Stanley, and the one thing Ford could always count on was his willingness to help him. His loyalty had saved them in the past, but now it would drag him into Ford’s nightmare. 

_I don’t want him to go_ , he realized as Stan opened the door and let them inside the house. _I’m not worth it. Bill could’ve set a trap. Modoc could do something to him and then what’ll happen to Abby? No. I can’t have that. I don’t want them hurt! This is my fault. I’ve been an awful brother. But I can protect them! I can keep them away from it. Away from Modoc. Away from Bill._

But even as he panicked and tried to come up with ways to keep Stan from going to Gravity Falls, he knew it was futile. Stan would go and he’d find the horror that was the Portal. He’d learn his twin was far worse than he’d ever thought possible.


End file.
